Published 26th Jan, 2025

By Akinjide Adebowale

After Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, he has issued executive orders on numerous issues. One of them is the withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organisation.

The implications of these orders on the US and other countries have been analysed.

More claims of additional executive orders from Trump have also emerged. One of these is the claim that Trump ordered the declassification of past and present drug related documents with America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

This claim was posted by Peter Obi Grassroots Mobilisation, an account on X supporting Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate Obi.

https://twitter.com/PO_GrassRootM/status/1883089738602840302?t=bc5ozqMHRq64JgMqdqLuUw&s=09

To classify information is to restrict a classification level to it to prevent sensitive information from unauthorised disclosure. Classification ensures that information critical to national security, law enforcement or other sensitive operations is handled appropriately.

Trump declassifying past and present drug-related information with the FBI would allow public access to relevant information on drug cases of the past and the present.

CLAIM

President Trump to declassify all the documents containing drugs activities of the past and present in the United States with the FBI.

VERIFICATION

Coming from this X user, the significance of Trump declassifying drug-related documents of the past and the present would be enormous for the next general elections.

During the hearing of the election tribunal following the 2023 presidential election, one of the arguments of the Obi-led Labour Party was that Bola Tinubu was ineligible to run because of a US District Court’s decision that compelled Tinubu to pay a $460,000 fine in an illicit drug trafficking case.

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) declared that such a fine did not translate to a criminal offence but a civil one. The evidence and details of Tinubu’s ties to a drug ring have been blocked by the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). They jointly cited security concerns. This largely affected the evidence that could have been used during the tribunal.

So far, Trump has only signed the executive order to declassify documents on the assassinations of John Kennedy, the former US president killed in 1963; Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother and a lawmaker; and Martin Luther King Jr, a prominent civil rights activist.

Credit: ABC News (Australia)

In ABC News’ coverage, Trump could be seen in the Oval Office signing the order.

“A lot of people are waiting for this for a long… for years, for decades,” Trump said as he signed the order.

FIJ also checked the White House’s Fact Sheets page which includes all of Trump’s orders, proclamations and key decisions. The White House Fact Sheets did not feature the US president’s plan or decision to declassify FBI documents on past or present drug-related crimes.