The OLC
Astrid Da Silva

The OLC's Opinions

Opinions published by the OLC, including those released in response to our FOIA lawsuit

This Reading Room is a comprehensive database of published opinions written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It contains the approximately 1,400 opinions published by the OLC in its online database and the opinions produced in Freedom of Information Act litigation brought by the Knight Institute, including opinions about the Pentagon Papers, the Civil Rights Era, and the War Powers Act. It also contains indexes of unclassified OLC opinions written between 1945 and February 15, 1994 (these indexes were created by the OLC and intended to be comprehensive). We have compiled those indexes into a single list here and in .csv format here. This Reading Room also contains an index of all classified OLC opinions issued between 1974 and 2021, except those classified or codeword-classified at a level higher than Top Secret (the OLC created this index, too, and intended it to be comprehensive).

The Knight Institute will continue updating the reading room with new records. To get alerts when the OLC publishes a new opinion in its database, follow @OLCforthepeople on Twitter.

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  • Interpretation of Executive Order No. 10501 regarding classified information

    This brief memo advised that while Executive Order No. 10501 of November 5, 1953 applied only to “information which requires protection in the interests of national defense,” it recognized that certain non-defense information would also require protection, albeit not under the classification scheme set forth in the Order. The memo “strongly suggested” that, for such information, the Foreign Operations Administration use terms such as “For official use only,” “For staff use only,” or “For U.S. Government use only” to indicate any necessary restrictions.

    5/16/2022

  • Membership of Judge Parker on the International Law Commission

    This opinion concludes that the Constitution does not prohibit John J. Parker, Chief Judge of the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fourth Circuit, from serving concurrently as a member of the International Law Commission in the U.N. 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 https://justice.gov/olc/page/file/935731/download.

    11/27/1953

  • Allocation of Travel Expenses of White House Personnel in Connection with Official Trips of the President

    This memo concluded that the travel expenses of White House officials and employees in connection with official trips of the president could be charged to the “Other Travel” item in the White House Office appropriation.

    5/16/2022

  • Enforcement of criminal law on Indian reservations

    This memo examined methods of improving enforcement of criminal law on Indian reservations in response to concerns raised by the governor of Montana. The memo suggested that the governor work with the Department of the Interior to take remedial actions including the possibility of establishing new tribal courts or initiating new legislation.

    5/16/2022

  • Authority of the Department of Justice to Represent Members of Congress in a Civil Suit

    The Attorney General has authority to represent members of the House of Representatives in a state court civil lawsuit if he determines that it would be in the interest of the United States to do so. The question whether the congressmen should be represented by the Department is wholly discretionary and should be determined as a matter of policy. 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/20731/download.

    3/26/1953

  • Applicability of conflict-of-interests statutes to uncompensated, nominally compensated, or per diem compensated individuals

    This memo examined the applicability of the conflict of interest statutes to individuals serving in a variety of different advisory roles. The memo found that while the statutes were generally applicable, their application was highly fact-specific and required analysis on a near-case-by-case basis.

    5/16/2022

  • Authority of Florida Police Officers to Make Arrests on the Basis of FBI Pick-Up Notices

    The authority of a Florida police officer to make a warrantless arrest for an alleged violation of federal law depends on state law and cannot be based merely on the existence of an FBI pick-up notice. 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/20726/download.

    1/28/1953

  • Investigative jurisdiction over wire tapping offenses

    This memo followed previous memoranda from November 10 and December 9th, 1952, which concluded that investigative jurisdiction for wiretapping offenses lay with the Department of Justice. The memo outlined the narrow circumstances of overlap where the Federal Communications Commission may share some investigative jurisdiction for wiretapping offenses.

    5/16/2022

  • The Constitutional Prohibition Against the Acceptance of Gifts from Foreign Potentates

    This opinion considers the question of whether American officials receiving gifts from Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Ab Saud (later Crown Prince and King of Saudi Arabia) were prohibited by the Emoluments Clause of the constitution. The opinion concludes that acceptance of gifts without Congressional consent would be unconstitutional and indicated that the accepted gifts should be turned over to the State Department's custody. 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 https://justice.gov/olc/page/file/935716/download.

    9/23/1952

  • Admission of attorneys, who are alleged Communists, to practice before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Immigration Service

    The OLC was asked whether attorneys who are otherwise in good standing may be denied admission to practice before immigration courts because of membership in the Communist party. The OLC advised the Board of Immigration Appeals that while some federal courts reference good moral character as an admission requirement, it identified no federal courts or administrative agencies that excluded applicants on the basis of Communist party membership, and suggested that the question “ought to be left primarily to the states” in their bar membership criteria.

    5/16/2022

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