A United States federal court has rejected a request by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan to obtain information from President Bola Tinubu over alleged cyberattacks on his legal research website, PlainSite.
Gatekeepers News reports that Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on October 30, 2026, that Greenspan’s request for limited discovery was not relevant to the underlying Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Greenspan had asked the court for permission to put four questions to Tinubu concerning alleged distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on his website. He also sought documents from DCI Group, a US-based public affairs and lobbying firm reportedly engaged by the Nigerian government.
The activist argued that the alleged attacks suggested that someone was closely monitoring the legal proceedings and had an interest in preventing public access to case-related materials.
However, Howell held that establishing the source of the attacks would not help determine whether the FBI and DEA had adequately searched for records or justified withholding some of the requested documents.
The judge said there was no “reasonable likelihood that allowing discovery” would lead to evidence relevant to the underlying case and consequently dismissed the request.
Greenspan’s request for the court to take judicial notice of certain records was also denied as moot.
The ruling also rejected a separate application by Karl Von Batten, a non-party to the lawsuit, to file an amicus curiae brief, as well as Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment.
Reacting to the decision, Christopher Carmichael, Tinubu’s lawyer, said the ruling reinforced the need to keep the proceedings focused on the legal issues before the court.
“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,” Carmichael said.
Another lawyer, Oluwole Afolabi, said the decisions established procedural boundaries for the ongoing litigation.
“While the underlying FOIA issues remain before the Court, these rulings establish important procedural boundaries and clarify which matters are appropriate for consideration in this litigation,” he said.
The lawsuit originated from 12 FOIA requests Greenspan filed between 2022 and 2023 with six US federal agencies, seeking investigative records relating to a Chicago-based heroin trafficking operation that operated in the early 1990s.
Tinubu was among four individuals named in the requests, alongside Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande and Abiodun Agbele.
In April 2025, the US court ruled that the FBI and DEA could not refuse to confirm or deny whether they held records relating to Tinubu, directing the agencies to search for and process non-exempt documents.
The agencies subsequently released some records but withheld or redacted other portions, citing legal protections.
Greenspan has continued to challenge the withholding of the documents, while Tinubu has opposed their wider release, arguing that some information is protected by privacy provisions under US law.
The latest ruling does not determine who was responsible for the alleged cyberattacks or resolve the outstanding dispute over the release of the investigative records.
