The United States court for the district of Columbia has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release records of their investigations on the alleged involvement of President Bola Tinubu in drug trafficking.
Beryl Howell, the district judge, on April 8, ruled that FBI and DEA “must search for and process non-exempt records” in line with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Howell held that the “Glomar responses” issued to FOIA requests must be lifted.
Glomar response is an evasive response given by government agencies to neither confirm or deny the existence of a particular information requested.
THE CASE
In 2022 and 2023, Aaron Greenspan, an American and founder of PlainSite, filed 12 FOIA requests with six different US federal government agencies to request the criminal investigation information of the Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s.
The US federal government agencies are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Executive Office of United States Attorneys (EOUSA), the United States Department of State, FBI, and DEA.
Greenspan sought investigative records about four named individuals allegedly associated with the drug ring.
The individuals are Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele.
According to court documents, five of the US agencies issued Glomar responses to Greenspan’s FOIA requests. The agencies stated that they could neither nor confirm the requested records.
Displeased with the responses, Greenspan approached the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP).
The OIP affirmed the agencies’ refusal to confirm or deny the existence of the
requested records, the court documents read.
On June 12, 2023, Greenspan filed an instant lawsuit to challenge the agencies’ response to the FOIA requests. The FBI, DEA, IRS, EOUSA, and Department of State were initially named as defendants.
However, the CIA was later named as defendant in the first amended complaint.
Subsequently, the plaintiff agreed to limit summary judgment briefing to challenges to the FBI, DEA, and CIA’s Glomar responses on Tinubu’s records.
THE JUDGMENT
In her judgment, Howell held that the Glomar responses issued by the FBI and DEA are “improper and must be lifted”.
The judge ruled that the FBI and DEA failed to provide information to “establish cognizable privacy interest exists in keeping secret the fact that Tinubu was a subject of criminal investigation”.
Howell held that the two agencies failed to provide evidence on the burden to sustain their Glomar responses.
“The FBI and DEA have both officially confirmed investigations of Tinubu relating to the drug trafficking ring,” the judge ruled.
“Any privacy interests implicated by the FOIA requests to the FBI and DEA for records about Tinubu are overcome by the public interest in release of such
information
“Since the FBI and DEA have provided no information to establish that a cognizable privacy interest exists in keeping secret the fact that Tinubu was a subject of criminal investigation.
“They have failed to meet their burden to sustain their Glomar responses and provide an additional reason why these responses must be lifted.”
The judge ruled that CIA’s Glomar response must be sustained since the plaintiff agreed that “CIA has officially acknowledged the existence of records responsive to his FOIA request for records about Tinubu”.
“For the reasons discussed above, plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment as to each of the four Glomar responses asserted by defendants FBI and DEA, while defendant CIA is entitled to summary judgment, since its Glomar response was properly asserted,” the judge ruled.
“Accordingly, the FBI and DEA must search for and process non-exempt records responsive to the FOIA requests directed to these agencies.
“The CIA, meanwhile, is entitled to judgment in its favor in this case. The remaining parties are directed to file jointly, by May 2, 2025, a report on the status of any outstanding issues in this case, as described in the accompanying order.”
See UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MEMORANDUM OPINION BELOW:
