Reading Room Document

Requests by Individual Members of Congress for Executive Branch Information

In reviewing requests from Congress, the Executive Branch's longstanding policy has been to engage in the established process for working to accommodate congressional requests for information only when those requests come from a committee, subcommittee, or chairman acting pursuant to oversight authority delegated from a House of Congress. Departments and agencies, however, may appropriately give due weight and sympathetic consideration to requests for information from individual members of Congress not delegated such authority. Only a committee chairman may request presidential records under section 2205(2)(C) of the Presidential Records Act, unless the committee has specifically delegated that authority to another member. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/olc/file/1356251/download.

February 13, 2019