The Tinubu Record — Volume III, Overview

After Glomar

The narcotics investigation and the demand for answers

By Prof. MarkAnthony Nze

Judge Beryl A. Howell’s April 8, 2025 opinion put a consequential fact beyond the FBI and DEA’s Glomar position: the Justice Department had already officially acknowledged that Bola Ahmed Tinubu was a subject of a criminal investigation involving both agencies. Howell pointed to IRS Special Agent Kevin Moss’s sworn affidavit, which stated that there was probable cause to believe funds in certain bank accounts controlled by Tinubu were involved in transactions violating federal money-laundering laws and represented proceeds of drug trafficking. The affidavit arose from an investigation of money laundering connected to a Chicago-area heroin-distribution organization and drew on information from the IRS, DEA and FBI. (ECF No. 48, pp. 18–21; TR-001.) [Documented]

Those allegations are not a criminal conviction, and Howell did not decide Tinubu’s guilt. The 1993 matter included a civil forfeiture proceeding; the present case is a FOIA action about access to federal records. But absence of a criminal conviction does not erase the historical investigation the Justice Department itself acknowledged. Volume III therefore asks two different questions: what Tinubu says about the sworn allegations and transactions described in the public record, and whether the U.S. authorities can lawfully justify the information they still withhold. [Documented/Inference]

The historical documentary chain has identifiable dates and actors. On July 26, 1993, federal prosecutors filed a verified civil-forfeiture complaint in the Northern District of Illinois, No. 93 C 4483. Attached to it was IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent Kevin Moss’s affidavit, sworn on July 20 and filed with the complaint. Moss alleged probable cause to believe that accounts controlled by Tinubu contained funds involved in transactions contrary to 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956–1957 and proceeds of drug trafficking. That was an assertion supporting seizure and forfeiture, not a jury verdict finding Tinubu guilty of a narcotics offense. (ECF No. 48, pp. 14–20; TR-001–TR-003.) [Documented]

Judge Howell traced the legal significance of that filing with care. The Justice Department did not simply become aware of a newspaper allegation. Its prosecutors filed the complaint and incorporated the Moss affidavit into a public federal court record. As Howell explained, that act amounted to an official acknowledgment of an investigation involving the FBI and DEA in which Tinubu was a subject. It defeated the claim that confirming the existence of that investigation would newly expose its existence. It did not extinguish protection for unrelated witnesses, account identifiers, confidential sources or other information that the statute still protects. (ECF No. 48, pp. 15–24; TR-001.) [Documented]

A civil forfeiture proceeding and a criminal case are distinct legal events. The historical complaint challenged property; the current FOIA lawsuit challenges government secrecy. Neither is a pending criminal trial of Tinubu. This publication nevertheless has ample reason to seek an account of the transaction history, the government’s charging and forfeiture decisions and the continuing public-interest basis for record-by-record review. Its demand is documentary: cite the transaction, identify the official action, show the supporting paper, and allow the competing explanation to be tested. [Inference]

Plate 21 — From the 1993 Moss affidavit to DOJ’s public filing and Howell’s 2025 official-acknowledgment ruling. The timeline does not establish criminal guilt.

What the April opinion settled

Howell distinguished secrecy about an investigation’s existence from privacy within its contents. The FBI and DEA could still apply lawful exemptions to responsive information, provided their explanations supported the protection claimed. The CIA prevailed on its separate Glomar position. Each agency’s response therefore has to be read against the ruling that governed it. (ECF No. 48, pp. 23–26; TR-001.) [Documented]

That distinction is the discipline of this volume. It will not turn an affidavit into a verdict, a redaction into proof of guilt, or a privacy claim into evidence of innocence. It will state what the government record says, identify what remains hidden, test the reasons offered for withholding, and put the unresolved factual questions where they belong: to Tinubu, his counsel and the U.S. authorities that investigated, retained and now defend portions of the file. [Inference]

Following the work through the calendar

Part 1 begins with the agencies’ reported request for ninety days and follows the calendar that developed afterward. Its central distinction is practical: finishing a search, beginning production and completing processing are different tasks. The 2025 docket records successive status reports, an October ruling that found no apparent violation of a court order, and a later postponement tied to the appropriations lapse. The February 2026 reporting then describes closer judicial control of processing and explanations for delay. Any assessment of performance must preserve that sequence. (TR-005; TR-006; TR-026.)

Consultation with another component, review for protected information and separation of releasable portions take administrative time. An account of delay should identify how that time was used. A meaningful status report connects unfinished work to a responsible component and an expected next act, allowing the court to examine what prevented completion. The existence of a necessary task cannot explain an indefinite wait for its result.

Counting what became public

Part 2 examines three public descriptions of disclosure: 399 pages, production running into the thousands, and the absence of Tinubu’s visible name. The last two appear together in Greenspan’s September 9, 2026 reply. His complaint about the visibility of a name is consequently different from a claim that no production occurred. A page total can measure the size of a workload, the volume delivered or the number of pages carrying particular information. Each measure answers a different question. (ECF No. 104, ECF p. 8; TR-008; TR-009; TR-025.)

Comparable totals require matching agencies, requests, dates and counting rules. Pages reviewed may include material withheld in full; a page released with redactions remains a released page; material sent for consultation may later reappear in a disclosure tally. Without a common account, adding or opposing those figures can produce an impressive number with no dependable meaning. The volume therefore asks for production letters and a reconciled record of dispositions, with the treatment of duplicates and consultations stated clearly.

Explaining secrecy to the court

Part 3 follows the reported four-day extension and the FBI’s submission of sealed declarations. Time to file a brief, permission to submit an explanation privately and inspection of an underlying investigative record are separate procedural acts. Their distinction matters because readers can otherwise mistake a filing deadline for a release date, or a notice of delivery for a judgment on the merits. A court may receive protected information privately while the lawfulness of withholding remains contested. (TR-010–TR-014; 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B).)

Private review addresses a real difficulty. An agency sometimes cannot explain a sensitive passage in full without revealing the very information it claims the law protects. The requester, meanwhile, must have enough public explanation to challenge the claim intelligently. Judicial scrutiny operates between those interests. A sufficiently informative public submission, a justified sealed supplement and careful examination of contested material can each contribute to that work. None supplies a substitute for deciding whether the asserted protection applies.

Privacy after public acknowledgment

Part 4 examines the privacy interests that survive public acknowledgment. Holding public office does not abolish privacy in investigative files. An investigation conducted by American agencies can nevertheless illuminate American government activity even when its subject is a foreign national. The inquiry concerns the information withheld and what disclosure would reveal about the agency’s exercise of authority. Tinubu’s political prominence cannot settle that balance by itself. (ECF No. 48, pp. 21–24; Reporters Committee, 1989; CREW, 2014.)

Part 5 applies the same discipline to the reported withholding grounds. Privacy, confidential sources, investigative methods, physical safety, other disclosure prohibitions and privileged legal material have different requirements. The twenty-five-year provision is particularly easy to overstate. Congress limited deliberative-process protection by the age of the record at the time of the request. It did not impose that limit on every privilege or every old investigative file. The reported dispute over EOUSA’s explanation turns partly on which privilege the explanation actually supports. (5 U.S.C. § 552(b); TR-020.)

Plate 22 — The April 8 ruling ended the challenged blanket denials; it did not resolve criminal responsibility or invalidate all lawful exemptions.

The account the public should receive

This investigation examines source material available through September 30, 2026 and identifies subsequent docket activity checked through October 7. Where a pleading or order was not obtained, the record is labeled accordingly; a docket entry cannot substitute for the court’s reasoning, and a party’s motion cannot substitute for a judicial ruling. The contested evidence is weighed according to its provenance, not the stature of the person advancing it.

Howell’s decision ended the agencies’ challenged denial of the investigation’s acknowledged existence. The next inquiry is exacting but narrower: have the FBI and DEA searched as required, described the records they withheld, shown the legal interest each exemption protects and released reasonably segregable nonexempt information? Tinubu has his own question to answer. The civil proceedings do not compel him to provide a newspaper with a personal explanation; they do not prevent him from placing contemporaneous evidence beside the allegations in the public affidavit.

Legal authorities and primary records used in the overview

Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, No. 23-1816 (BAH), ECF No. 48, Memorandum Opinion, pp. 14–26 (D.D.C. Apr. 8, 2025).

Verified Complaint for Forfeiture, United States v. Funds in Account 263226700 Held by First Heritage Bank in the Name of Bola Tinubu, No. 93 C 4483 (N.D. Ill. July 26, 1993); incorporated affidavit of IRS Special Agent Kevin Moss (sworn July 20, 1993). Reproduced as ECF No. 41-4 in Greenspan.

Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(B), (a)(8), (b)(5), (b)(6), (b)(7)(C) (as amended).

U.S. Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749 (1989).

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. U.S. Department of Justice, 746 F.3d 1082 (D.C. Cir. 2014).

Greenspan, A. (Sept. 9, 2026). Plaintiff’s reply and opposition, ECF No. 104, Greenspan v. EOUSA, No. 23-1816 (BAH) (D.D.C.).

Greenspan v. EOUSA, No. 23-1816 (BAH), docket minute orders of Oct. 15 and Dec. 2, 2025 (D.D.C.); reproduced in FOIA Project docket index.

Source discipline: The 1993 allegations and litigants’ filings are identified as allegations or positions, not findings of criminal guilt. Reported 2026 developments are cited separately in the volume’s evidence register.

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