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.
Showing 1421–1430 of 2202
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Authority of the Attorney General to Pass on the Sufficiency of Title to Lands Acquired by the Department of Energy for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Real Property—Title—Authority of the Attorney General (40 U.S.C. § 255)—Strategic Petroleum Reserve 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/22121/download.
8/28/1979
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Transportation of Executive Branch Officials by Government Passenger Motor Vehicles
Transportation of Executive Branch Officials by Government Passenger Motor Vehicles (31 U.S.C. § 638a) 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/22116/download.
8/27/1979
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Application of Animal Welfare Act to Instrastate Activity
Animal Welfare Act (7 U.S.C. § 2131 et seq.)—Commerce—Application to Intrastate Activity 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/22111/download.
8/22/1979
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Political Contributions by Federal Employees
Political Contributions by Federal Employees (18 U.S.C. §§ 602, 607) 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/22106/download.
8/16/1979
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Applicability of Federal Advisory Committee Act and Federal Conflict of Interest Laws to United States-Japan Consultative Group on Economic Relations
Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App. I)—United States-Japan Consultative Group on Economic Relations 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/22101/download.
8/10/1979
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Whether Contractors Must Continue to File Financial Reports With the Renegotiation Board in Absence of Appropriation for the Board
Renegotiation Board—Reporting Requirement (50 U.S.C. App. § 1215)—Effect of Absence of an Appropriation—Repeals by Implication 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/22096/download.
8/6/1979
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Presidential Appointments During Intrasession Recess of Senate
Constitutional Law—Article II, Section 2, Clause 3—Recess Appointments—Compensation (5 U.S.C. § 5503) 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/22091/download.
8/3/1979
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Justice Department Responsibility for Refugees Landing in the United States
This memo found that the attorney general could assume custody of refugees landing on U.S. territory by paroling them into the U.S. or by treating the refugees as illegal entrants and detaining them pending deportation. Furthermore, the memo concluded that locating a refugee camp on U.S. territories, the Mariana Islands, or Pacific Islands would have differing effects on the authority of the attorney general to deal with refugees.
9/2/2022
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Convening the Initial Meeting of Board of Directors of the NationalConsumer Cooperative Bank Before the President Has Appointed All Members
(1) Federally Chartered Corporations—National Consumer Cooperative Bank—Board of Directors; (2) Recess Appointments 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/22086/download.
7/31/1979
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Constitutionality of Proposed Energy Mobilization Board Legislation
Constitutional Law—Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3)—Constitutional Aspects of the Proposed Energy Mobilization Board Legislation 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/22081/download.
7/24/1979