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A Washington-based lobbying firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, has asked a US court to intervene in a case challenging Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s attempt to block the release of FBI and DEA records about him.
The firm said in a post on X that the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia had formally received its proposed filing in Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys et al.
The firm is asking the court for permission to present an additional perspective on Tinubu’s asserted privacy interests and the Nigerian Presidency’s public discussion of the investigative records at the centre of the dispute.
Its argument is that the Presidency’s decision to publicly characterise the FBI and DEA records could undermine Tinubu’s claim that the same records should remain protected on privacy grounds.
“You cannot have it both ways,” the firm said, arguing that Tinubu could not “invoke privacy before a United States federal court while using the power of the Nigerian Presidency to publicly characterize those same investigative records and tell the world what they supposedly contain.”
Von Batten-Montague-York said it wanted the court to consider the Nigerian government’s public statement when weighing Tinubu’s privacy interests against the public interest in understanding the actions of the FBI, DEA and US Department of Justice in relation to the records.
The firm acknowledged that Tinubu and other parties were likely to oppose its filing.
“We fully expect President Bola Tinubu and the other parties to challenge this filing for one reason or another,” it said.
It added that its “primary objective” was to ensure the court was aware of the Nigerian Presidency’s statement and its argument that the statement “potentially weakens President Tinubu’s asserted claim of privacy.”
The case stems from Freedom of Information Act requests filed by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan seeking records from US agencies relating to alleged investigations involving Tinubu and others in connection with a Chicago-based heroin trafficking and money-laundering investigation in the early 1990s.
Greenspan’s requests included the “entire FBI file” on Tinubu and FBI interview records from 1992 and 1993.
The DEA was also asked for records concerning an alleged Nigerian heroin distribution organisation active from the late 1980s through the 1990s.
The FBI and DEA initially issued so-called Glomar responses, declining to confirm or deny whether records concerning Tinubu existed, citing privacy exemptions under the US Freedom of Information Act.
In April 2025, however, US District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that public disclosures by the US Department of Justice had officially acknowledged the FBI and DEA’s involvement in investigations concerning Tinubu.
She consequently held that the agencies could no longer maintain their Glomar responses on those requests and ordered them to search for and process non-exempt records.
The CIA, which was also involved in the litigation, retained its Glomar response because the court found that its own records concerning Tinubu had not been officially acknowledged.
Tinubu later joined the case as an intervenor.
In a filing reported in August 2026, he asked the court to reject Greenspan’s request for further disclosure and allow the FBI and DEA to maintain redactions and withholdings in records already released, citing privacy protections under US law.
Von Batten-Montague-York’s latest filing therefore introduces a new argument into the dispute: that the Nigerian government’s own public comments about the records should be considered when determining the extent of Tinubu’s remaining privacy interests.
The firm said that, regardless of whether the court allows its proposed amicus brief to be formally docketed and considered, it has placed the issue before the court.
Von Batten-Montague-York is a Washington-based lobbying firm that was hired by African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar under a contract worth $1.2 million annually, according to a US Foreign Agents Registration Act filing.
Today, our proposed amicus curiae filing was formally received by the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys et al. We ask the Court for permission to present an additional perspective on Nigerian… pic.twitter.com/6B68A8ihu8
— Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C. (@batten_von) September 4, 2026
