Table of Contents
Glomar fell in April 2025, however the court docket didn’t order unredacted disclosure or approve privateness withholdings upfront. Half 4 examines the competing September motions and the October 15 minute order that rejected each as untimely, recorded the companies’ manufacturing standing and reserved Exemptions 6 and seven(C) for record-specific adjudication.
Glomar fell, and neither aspect inherited the judgment it needed. Greenspan demanded unredacted manufacturing inside forty-eight hours and contempt sanctions, whereas Tinubu sought advance judicial safety for information figuring out him. On October 15, 2025, Choose Beryl A. Howell denied each motions as untimely and held that every aspect had tried to extract from the April opinion a ruling it by no means made. Documented
Sequence is controlling right here. The April opinion preceded the competing motions by practically 5 months and determined solely the lawfulness of the blanket Glomar responses. The minute order of October 15, 2025, and never the April opinion, rejected Greenspan’s demand for quick manufacturing and Tinubu’s request for advance affirmation of privateness withholdings. Documented
The Boundary of the April Ruling
What the April choice held is narrower than both occasion claimed. Howell concluded that neither the Drug Enforcement Administration nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation had appropriately invoked Glomar responses when declining to verify or deny the existence of investigative recordsdata about Tinubu or his alleged affiliate Abiodun Agbele, reported at 2025 WL 1040834. Documented
Limits of that holding are said within the October order in phrases. Software of Exemptions 6 and seven(C) was not a difficulty resolved within the prior choice, which was restricted to the appropriateness of the companies’ blanket Glomar responses and thus didn’t deal with the applying of any exemption in any respect. Documented
Pinpoint citations within the order make the boundary unmistakable. Howell cited her personal opinion at pages six and 9 as ruling on Glomar responses solely, and at web page 13 as directing the 2 companies to seek for and course of non-exempt information, with the qualifier emphasised within the authentic. Documented
Forensic Plate — Half 4, first exhibit. Two columns itemizing 5 holdings of the memorandum opinion towards six issues it didn’t determine, together with prison culpability, wholesale disclosure and any particular redaction.
Two Motions Constructed on the Similar Error
September 2025 introduced two motions constructed on the identical error from reverse instructions. Greenspan moved on September 4 to compel manufacturing pursuant to the April order and for contempt sanctions. Tinubu moved the identical day for affirmation that the companies can and will withhold or redact information that establish him. Documented
Symmetry of these filings is essentially the most telling truth on this half. One occasion learn a ruling about refusals to verify as an order to reveal every part, and the opposite learn the identical ruling as needing a pre-emptive protect, and each have been asking a court docket to determine a query it had expressly left open. Inference
Briefing on the 2 motions ran via September. Greenspan opposed the intervenor’s movement on September 8, the companies filed a mixed opposition and response on September 17 attaching correspondence of August 7, Greenspan replied on September 18, and the intervenor replied on September 24. Documented
Choose Howell stated so straight. Neither movement had benefit, and each seemed to be predicated on a misapprehension of the prior choice. Each sought a ruling that was untimely, since any analysis of the applicability of Exemptions 6 and seven(C) to particular information can be applicable solely when manufacturing is full and the company’s justification for any challenged withholding is earlier than the Court docket. Documented
Prematurity is a procedural discovering and carries no view on the deserves. Nothing within the October order means that both occasion’s eventual place on the exemptions is incorrect, and nothing in it forecloses both from making that argument as soon as the document is assembled. Inference
Timing of the ruling adopted the briefing exactly. A minute order of September 19 had already famous that the intervenor’s movement was not but totally briefed and due to this fact not ripe, and the court docket dominated three weeks after the ultimate reply arrived. Documented
The place Every Company Stood
DEA progress is recorded first. It had accomplished its productions aside from twelve pages topic to assessment by different companies, as recorded within the joint standing report of September 17, 2025. Documented
FBI progress stood at a special stage completely. Federal Bureau of Investigation had accomplished its seek for responsive information and anticipated starting productions on December 1, 2025, which signifies that as of October 2025 it had produced nothing underneath the April order. Documented
Manufacturing standing seems within the order and fixes the companies’ positions as of September 17, 2025. The DEA reported that its productions have been full apart from twelve pages referred to different companies, whereas the FBI reported that its search was full and that manufacturing had not begun. That order doesn’t resolve competing secondary claims about what was produced throughout 2026, as a result of the later substantive filings and manufacturing information haven’t been examined. Documented
Precision about dates is what retains that discovering usable. An account merging two companies at totally different phases into one declare about compliance can be incorrect whichever means it errs, and a standing recorded in September 2025 can’t reply a query about manufacturing throughout 2026. Inference
Delay entered from exterior the case. Howell famous that the scheduled dates can be adjusted due to the federal authorities’s lapse in appropriations, underneath the standing order governing that lapse, and a later order information the primary manufacturing shifting from December 1, 2025 to January 23, 2026. Documented
Why Contempt and Speedy Manufacturing Each Failed
Contempt was refused on a floor price quoting for its precision. Greenspan had asserted that the 2 companies have been actively engaged in a deliberate effort to defy the court docket’s order, and Howell denied sanctions as a result of nothing within the companies’ ongoing processing of responsive information appeared to violate any court docket order. Documented
Scope of that discovering requires stating precisely. As of October 15, 2025, the court docket discovered no violation of its orders. That discovering defeated the contempt declare on the document then earlier than the court docket, and it didn’t adjudicate later delay or later compliance. Documented
Speedy manufacturing was refused on separate grounds. Greenspan had sought a forty-eight hour turnaround with out redactions, and the court docket held that this amounted to leaping the road to have his requests addressed earlier than others in any queue pending earlier than the companies. Documented
Familiarity of that reasoning is price noting. Howell cited her personal memorandum and order of November 21, 2023, which had denied his earlier emergency movement and his movement for reconsideration on the identical queue-jumping floor, so the October ruling repeated a place taken two years earlier than. Documented
Injunctive reduction has necessities he didn’t try to satisfy. Howell recorded that he had not proven, and even tried to point out, an entitlement to the reduction demanded, citing the governing requirements in Winter v. Pure Assets Protection Council and Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo. Documented
Forensic Plate — Half 4, second exhibit. 4 numbered playing cards setting out search, assessment, segregation and launch as distinct phases, with a be aware that the April 2025 order reached solely the primary.
What Neither Facet Gained
Exemptions 6 and seven(C) due to this fact stay totally obtainable and undecided. Each survive the April ruling untouched, each should nonetheless be justified towards recognized information, and the court docket has reserved that query till manufacturing is full and the companies’ justifications are earlier than it. Documented
Neither aspect gained something a partisan account may use. No person was present in contempt, no one obtained a protect, no document was ordered launched and no exemption was confirmed, which is the atypical end result when two events ask a court docket to determine a query upfront of the information. Inference
Reporting the end result in these phrases just isn’t neutrality for its personal sake. Any account claiming the October order vindicated both occasion could be checked towards the docket textual content in a minute, and an investigation that made such a declare would forfeit the credibility it wants for the components that comply with. Inference
What the October order didn’t determine deserves stating with the identical precision as what it did. It made no discovering about guilt, no discovering of exoneration, no basic grant of immunity from disclosure, and no ruling on any explicit doc held by both company. Documented
Choose Howell’s order of October 15, 2025 left two companies processing responsive information and reserved the record-specific exemption questions. As a result of the later substantive filings weren’t retrieved, Quantity II doesn’t assert that this remained the exact posture on the August 31, 2026 publication cut-off. Documented
Recorded Gaps
Recorded Gaps for this half are three. Nothing examined establishes what the Federal Bureau of Investigation has produced since January 2026. Nothing examined identifies the twelve pages the Drug Enforcement Administration referred to different companies or the end result of that referral. Nothing examined establishes which exemptions have since been asserted over which information.
Data Not Retrieved
Data Not Retrieved for this half are the underlying occasion filings at ECF Nos. 55, 56, 57, 59, 60 and 61, the joint standing studies at ECF Nos. 58 and 62, and each occasion submitting entered after December 2025. The publicly entered textual content of the October 15 and December 2, 2025 minute orders has been examined in full and is assessed individually as major materials.
United States District Court docket for the District of Columbia ought to decide the applicability of Exemptions 6 and seven(C) as soon as manufacturing is full and the companies’ justifications are earlier than it, and will establish publicly that are sustained and which rejected. If processing stays incomplete, the FBI and the DEA ought to full it with out pointless delay. If processing is full, they need to place the completion date and the disposition of the twelve referred pages on the general public document. Inference
Word: this quantity’s Proof Docket is consolidated throughout all components and seems on the shut of the amount somewhat than after every installment. It may be transformed to WordPress-ready HTML on request, in the identical method because the components.
