US Firm Raises Fresh Questions Over FBI Records on Tinubu

A Washington, D.C.-based policy advisory and lobbying firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C., has raised fresh questions over newly filed FBI declarations concerning US government records relating to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The firm said the declarations were filed in a US federal court as part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case involving records concerning Tinubu.
According to Von Batten-Montague-York, the FBI has again stated that its search covered records concerning Tinubu and that the materials retrieved were connected to a historical investigation involving alleged drug-trafficking activities, controlled drug purchases involving a cooperating witness, federal grand-jury proceedings and electronic surveillance.
The firm also said the Executive Office for United States Attorneys confirmed the existence of records relating to a prosecutor’s case strategy and potential grand-jury targets.
Von Batten-Montague-York argued that the prosecution-plan records could provide further information about the allegations surrounding Tinubu and the US investigation.
The firm further alleged that the documents could shed light on claims that Tinubu cooperated with US authorities in relation to other people investigated in the case.
However, the allegation that Tinubu acted as a government witness or provided information against alleged associates has not been established by the court records publicly described so far.
The FBI’s disclosures form part of a long-running FOIA case brought by transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who sought records from US law-enforcement agencies relating to Tinubu. A US federal judge previously ruled that government agencies had acknowledged Tinubu as a subject of a criminal investigation, while ordering them to process records that were not exempt from disclosure.
The Presidency has maintained that the proceedings are a civil FOIA dispute over access to government records and do not amount to a criminal trial against Tinubu. It has also stressed that neither the court nor a US government agency has found the Nigerian President guilty of criminal wrongdoing in the case.