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 1791–1800 of 2202

5/10/1974
Appointment of a Foreign National to the National Voluntary Service Advisory Coun[ci]l

This opinion reviews whether the appointment of an Iranian national to the National Voluntary Service Advisory Council is legal. It concludes that no statute bars the appointment, but advises the White House to consult the State Department to consider the diplomatic implications. 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/935961/download.

5/10/1974
4/30/1974
Wiretap Authority for Non-Department of Justice Agencies

4/28/2020
4/26/1974
Conditional Gifts to the President from Anonymous Donors

This opinion memorializes advice made to White House counsel in light of anonymous contributions sent to President Nixon to “help him pay his personal income taxes,” which he wants to contribute instead to the Red Cross. The opinion advises President Nixon to avoid claiming the contribution as a tax deduction and to wait a reasonable time to allow donors to possibly abandon their anonymity and object to the transfer. 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/935951/download.

4/26/1974
4/24/1974
Authority of Ohio Governor to Provide State Defense Attorneys for National Guardsmen Being Federally Prosecuted (Kent State).

4/28/2020
4/19/1974
Appointment of Women to the Military Service Academies.

4/28/2020
4/17/1974
5 U.S.C. 7102 [opinion re: First Amendment protections and UN personnel]

4/28/2020
4/16/1974
(1) Travel and expense reimbursement for attendance at meetings of regular members on ABA Antitrust Council. (2) Travel and expense reimbursement for making speeches.

4/28/2020
4/15/1974
Short staff memorandum on the question of wiretapping U.S. citizens abroad for governmental purposes

4/28/2020
4/5/1974
Letter of January 25, 1974, regarding the applicability of the Freedom of Information Act to the Government Printing Office.

4/28/2020
3/28/1974
Response to the following motion adopted at the February 1974 meeting of the Interagency Classification Review Committee.

4/28/2020