US Court Rejects Aaron Greenspan’s Request for Evidence from Tinubu, DCI Group in FOIA Litigation

A United States federal court has rejected a request by Aaron Greenspan to obtain evidence from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Washington-based public affairs firm DCI Group in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The ruling, delivered on October 30, 2026, by the US District Court for the District of Columbia, represents a setback for Greenspan, who had sought to expand the scope of the litigation by introducing questions surrounding alleged cyberattacks on his website.

The court held that the proposed discovery was not sufficiently relevant to the legal issues under consideration in the FOIA proceedings. Consequently, it declined to allow Greenspan to use the case as a means of obtaining evidence from individuals and organisations whose involvement was not established as necessary to resolve the specific dispute before it.

The decision is significant because it reinforces the boundaries within which parties can pursue evidence in litigation, particularly in cases brought under the FOIA, a US law that provides members of the public with the right to request access to federal government records.

Apart from rejecting the proposed discovery involving Tinubu and DCI Group, the court also turned down a request by Karl Von Batten, who is not a party to the proceedings, to submit an amicus curiae brief.

An amicus curiae brief is a legal submission made by an individual or organisation that is not directly involved in a case but seeks to offer information, legal arguments or perspectives that may assist the court in reaching its decision.

The court equally rejected Greenspan's request for judicial notice and denied his motion for summary judgment.

These decisions constitute separate procedural setbacks for Greenspan, although they do not bring the underlying FOIA litigation against the FBI and DEA to an end.

Court Draws Boundaries Around FOIA Proceedings

At the centre of the latest ruling is the distinction between the right of an individual to request government records and the scope of evidence that can be demanded from other persons or organisations during litigation.

Under the FOIA framework, individuals can seek access to records held by federal agencies, subject to statutory exemptions and other applicable legal restrictions.

However, such proceedings are not automatically an avenue for investigating every allegation or controversy that may have some connection to the subject matter of a records request.

The court's decision suggests that Greenspan's attempt to obtain evidence from Tinubu and DCI Group over alleged cyberattacks did not satisfy the relevance requirement necessary to justify the proposed discovery within the existing proceedings.

In other words, the court was not prepared to allow the FOIA lawsuit to become an instrument for pursuing additional inquiries that fell outside the legal questions requiring determination.

The ruling does not, however, amount to a judicial determination that the alleged cyberattacks did or did not occur. Neither does the rejection of the discovery request establish whether Tinubu or DCI Group had any involvement in the allegations.

Rather, the court's decision was focused on whether the evidence Greenspan sought was relevant to the particular FOIA dispute before it.

That distinction is important in interpreting the outcome, especially given the political sensitivity that can surround legal proceedings involving a sitting Nigerian president and allegations connected to activities in the United States.

Lawyers Welcome The Court's Decision

Reacting to the ruling, attorney Christopher W. Carmichael said the court had made it clear that the FOIA proceedings could not be used to pursue discovery unrelated to the legal questions before it.

Carmichael stated: “The Court’s decision makes clear that this Freedom of Information Act proceeding cannot be used to pursue discovery unrelated to the legal questions before it.”

His reaction underscored the importance of maintaining a clear distinction between the issues properly before the court and other allegations that a litigant might wish to investigate.

Attorney Oluwole Afolabi also confirmed that the court had denied Greenspan's motion for summary judgment and rejected the application seeking permission to introduce an amicus curiae brief.

The rejection of the summary judgment application means Greenspan did not obtain the immediate judgment he sought on the issues covered by that motion.

Summary judgment is a procedure through which a party asks a court to resolve a case, or particular claims within it, without a full trial where the relevant legal and factual requirements for such a decision are satisfied.

Its denial does not necessarily mean that the applicant has lost the entire case. Rather, it means the court has declined to grant the requested judgment at that stage of the proceedings.

Similarly, the rejection of Von Batten's proposed amicus brief means the court declined to accept the additional submission from the non-party in the form requested.

Tinubu And DCI Group: What The Ruling Does Not Establish

The reference to President Tinubu and DCI Group in the discovery application has attracted particular attention because of the potential implications of seeking evidence from a sitting Nigerian president in litigation before an American court.

However, the court's refusal to grant Greenspan's request should not be interpreted as an endorsement or rejection of any allegation against the Nigerian leader or the public affairs firm.

The decision was procedural and concerned the relevance of the proposed evidence to the FOIA dispute.

There is also an important distinction between asking a court to compel the production of documents or other evidence and establishing that the persons or organisations from whom such evidence is sought have committed any wrongdoing.

The ruling did not establish that Tinubu or DCI Group participated in cyberattacks against Greenspan's website. It equally did not pronounce on the truth or otherwise of the allegations surrounding those purported incidents.

Consequently, the latest development should be understood within the precise legal context in which it occurred rather than as a determination of the broader allegations.

FOIA Case Against FBI And DEA Remains Open

Despite the rejection of the various applications, the substantive FOIA litigation involving Greenspan, the FBI and the DEA remains ongoing.

This means that the underlying dispute concerning access to federal agency records has not been finally resolved by the October 30 ruling.

The latest decision also does not foreclose every possible legal avenue available to Greenspan outside the particular discovery request rejected by the court. Any further application, however, would have to satisfy the applicable procedural and legal requirements.

The case therefore remains relevant to broader questions about transparency, access to government information and the limits of litigation under the American FOIA framework.

For Nigeria, the mention of President Tinubu in the proceedings makes the development noteworthy, but the distinction between allegations, applications and judicial findings remains essential.

Ultimately, the immediate outcome is clear: the US District Court for the District of Columbia has refused to allow Greenspan to obtain the evidence he sought from Tinubu and DCI Group through the ongoing FOIA proceedings, rejected the proposed third-party intervention and declined to grant his request for summary judgment.

The substantive dispute involving the FBI and DEA, however, is far from concluded.