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 1721–1730 of 2202
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Applicability of 3 C.F.R. Part 100 to the President and Vice President.
4/28/2020
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Application of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to the Sale of Sperm Whale Oil by the General Services Administration
4/28/2020
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Opinion as to the legal propriety of a procedure by which the Clemency Board proposes to separately disclose the names of persons receiving clemency and the conditions of the grants of clemency.
4/28/2020
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Retroactive Effect of S. 782 [Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act] on Consent Decree Process
4/28/2020
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Constitutionality of the Federal Advisory Committee Act
Without reaching definitive conclusions, this memorandum considers three constitutional questions raised by the Federal Advisory Committee Act. First, is it within Congress's constitutional powers to regulate advisory committees in general and presidential advisory committees in particular? Second, even if Congress can regulate advisory committees, may it regulate those committees giving advice to the President without violating the separation of powers? Third, even if Congress may regulate those committees giving advice to the President, may the President except certain committees from certain regulations because of executive privilege? 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/20921/download.
12/1/1974
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Application of Federal Reports Act to Letter of Inquiry Sent to Ten or More Persons From the Antitrust Division
4/28/2020
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FOIA Appeal from Denial of Access to FBI COINTELPRO Files Regarding Professor Morris Starsky
As a matter of administrative discretion, the Department of Justice should grant the FOIA request of an attorney for the FBI's COINTELPRO-New Left files regarding his client, a professor at Arizona State University and an active member of the Socialist Workers Party. FOIA Exemption (7) is technically applicable to the withheld documents. However, like all of the exemptions, Exemption (7) is only discretionary, and should not be asserted unless such action is in the public interest. Assertion of the exemption is not recommended for these documents. 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/20861/download.
11/27/1974
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Legality of the system outlined in section 3(c)(l)(ii) and (iii) of Presidential Proclamation 3279, as amended by Proclamations 4210 and 4227, providing for payments to Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa derived from funds collected
4/28/2020
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Approval by the State Department of LEAA Grants to the United Nations
4/28/2020
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Effect of the "antilobbying" provisions of Federal law upon activities of the Executive branch.
4/28/2020