By Our Reporter 

A United States District Court in Washington, D.C., has denied a request by Aaron Greenspan seeking permission to obtain evidence from President Bola Tinubu and DCI Group in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The court, in a ruling delivered on Friday, held that the proposed discovery relating to alleged cyberattacks on Greenspan’s website was not sufficiently relevant to the underlying FOIA dispute.

The decision effectively prevents Greenspan from using the ongoing litigation to pursue the discovery request against Tinubu and DCI Group on issues the court considered unrelated to the legal questions before it.

Reacting to the ruling, attorney Christopher W. Carmichael said the decision reinforced the need to keep the FOIA proceedings within the scope of the issues properly 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.

The court also rejected a separate application by nonparty Karl Von Batten seeking permission to submit an amicus curiae, or friend-of-the-court, brief. It equally denied Greenspan’s related request for judicial notice.

In addition, the court denied Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment.

Another lawyer, Oluwole Afolabi, described the decisions as important procedural clarifications, noting that the substantive FOIA issues remained before the court.

“The Court also denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and rejected a separate request to introduce an amicus brief,” Afolabi said.

He added that the rulings established procedural boundaries and clarified the matters appropriate for consideration in the litigation.