Reading Room Document

Propriety of Asserting a Governmental Privilege in Response to a Court Order

Both the common law governmental pnvilege and the constitutionally based executive privilege may be asserted to protect certain documents reflecting the deliberation of close presidential advisers from disclosure in response to a court order. 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/file/23171/download.

October 13, 1982