WASHINGTON, United States — An American plaintiff seeking the release of decades-old US law enforcement records concerning President Bola Tinubu has asked a federal court for permission to question the Nigerian leader over suspected cyberattacks on his website.
Aaron Greenspan, who operates the legal research platform PlainSite, also wants to obtain documents from DCI Group AZ, a Washington-based lobbying firm registered as an agent of the Nigerian government.
The request, filed on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, forms part of Greenspan’s ongoing lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Greenspan has not accused Tinubu or the lobbying firm of carrying out the alleged cyberattacks, and no court has established their involvement.
According to court filings reported by Sahara Reporters, Greenspan is seeking permission to serve Tinubu with six written questions, four requests for admission, and one request for documents.
He wants to establish whether Tinubu, the Nigerian government, or anyone acting on their behalf had any knowledge of or involvement in attacks targeting PlainSite.
Greenspan is also seeking a subpoena requiring DCI Group to produce records concerning his website, the litigation, and communications relating to the alleged cyberattacks.
The firm’s registration under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act identifies it as an agent of the Nigerian government through Aster Legal.
A December 2025 filing disclosed a $4.5 million payment to DCI Group for the first six months of an agreement providing for monthly payments of $750,000.
Greenspan’s proposed document requests concern the firm’s activities relating to him and his litigation, rather than its wider work for Nigeria.
He has expressly stated that he is not alleging that DCI Group was responsible for the attacks.
Website Reportedly Targeted by Repeated Cyberattacks
In a declaration submitted to the court, Greenspan said PlainSite had experienced repeated distributed denial-of-service attacks since April 2025.
Such attacks involve directing large volumes of internet traffic towards a website to overwhelm its systems and disrupt access.
Greenspan said his monitoring equipment recorded attack traffic reaching approximately 1 gigabit per second and 1.8 million packets per second from more than 110,000 source hosts simultaneously.
He also reported substantial disruptions in August 2026, including an attack that began on August 6 and continued for several days.
According to his filing, the attacks frequently occurred around significant developments and filing deadlines in his lawsuit.
Greenspan acknowledged that the timing alone did not establish who was responsible.
“Correlation is not attribution,” he stated.
Tinubu’s Lawyers Oppose Request
Greenspan said he approached Tinubu’s legal representatives before seeking the court’s permission.
The lawyers rejected his proposed questions, arguing that they were unrelated to the Freedom of Information Act proceedings and amounted to an attempt to conduct a separate personal investigation.
According to Greenspan, the FBI and DEA did not respond to his request.
The underlying lawsuit concerns records held by US law enforcement agencies relating to investigations conducted during the 1990s.
In an April 2025 ruling, Judge Beryl A. Howell rejected the FBI’s and DEA’s refusal to confirm or deny the existence of certain requested records, requiring the agencies to process the requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
Tinubu subsequently sought to protect portions of the records from disclosure on privacy grounds.
The proceedings concern access to government records and do not constitute a criminal prosecution of the Nigerian president.
Greenspan’s latest application remains before Howell.
As of the reported filing, the court had not granted permission to question Tinubu or compel DCI Group to produce the requested documents.
