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 1941–1950 of 2202
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Federal Corrupt Practices Act
7/27/2020
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Authority of Special Agents to administer oaths in personnel inquiries
7/27/2020
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Proposed Administration Crime Package
7/27/2020
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Constitutionality of "No Appropriation" Clause in the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act
A "no appropriation" clause in the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, requiring approval of a construction project by the appropriate committees of the Senate and House of Representatives before Congress may enact appropriations legislation for the project, is constitutional. 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/20811/download.
2/27/1969
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Relationship between the OFCC [Office of Federal Contract Compliance], in the Department of Labor, and the Department of Defense in its capacity as a contracting agency.
7/27/2020
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Proposed regulation imposing absolute liability for pollution on oil companies who hold their leases pursuant to the provisions of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 67 Stat. 462, 43 U.S.C. 1331 et seq.
7/27/2020
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Question of tax exemption for religious institutions and offers to present a lecture on "faith in man" at one of the White House Sunday services
10/27/2020
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Suggestions for Prevention of College Disturbances
5/16/2022
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Task Force Arguments Against Block Grants for Aid to Education
7/27/2020
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Nonvoting Delegate in the House of Representatives from the District of Columbia
7/27/2020