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 1961–1970 of 2202
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Advice as to whether section 603(b) of the Economic Opportunity Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 2943(b), authorizes the Office of Economic Opportunity to suspend summarily assistance to a community action agency as a means of enforcing section 603(a), which ma
7/27/2020
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Memorandum of October 28, 1968, concerning "Special Statutory Provisions Governing Judicial Review."
7/27/2020
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Withheld Warren Commission Documents
The attorney general asked the OLC to conduct a complete review of each of the Warren Commission exhibits that had not yet been released to the public. The OLC concluded that no unreleased exhibits would contribute to public understanding of the assassination, because most of the pertinent information in those exhibits was already publicly known. The OLC also recommended the continued withholding of “irrelevant material” related to the investigation, primarily because it would only had served to embarrass or possibly harm citizens who made tips that turned to have no connection with the assassination. For another group of documents that were scheduled to be re-reviewed in 1970, the OLC made “no firm recommendation” regarding the documents’ release prior to the 1970 review, and encouraged the attorney general to solicit the views of other agencies on the release of the documents. Lastly, the OLC informed the attorney general that the National Archives agreed to transfer the documents to a section of the stacks that was secured by a locked metal grill door to ensure the physical security of the documents.
5/16/2022
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The extent of your enforcement authority under Executive Order 11387 of January 1, 1968, Governing Certain Capital Transfers Abroad
7/27/2020
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Legal authority to use federal troops to quell Election Day disturbances
5/16/2022
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Stop and Frisk Guidelines for the D.C. Police
5/16/2022
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Legal Authority for Using Federalized National Guard and Reserve Components of Armed Forces in Suppressing Civil Disorders at the Request of a State
This opinion concluded that the President could federalize a state militia in response to a state request to do so based on the state’s inability to “restore law and order with all the resources at its command.” It also concluded that the President could deploy troops for a limited period of time in response to civil unrest, but could not do so permanently.
5/16/2022
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Use of Federal Troops to Protect Government Property and Functions at the Pentagon Against Anti-War Demonstrators
5/16/2022
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Carriage of Firearms by the Marshal, Deputy Marshals, and Judges of the Customs Court
The Marshal and Deputy Marshals of the Customs Court are not authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 3053 to carry firearms. Neither the official duties of the Marshal, as described by 28 U.S.C. § 872 and Rule 19 of the Rules of the Customs Court, nor the official duties of the Judges of the Customs Court would appear to necessitate the carriage of firearms. If the Customs Court finds it necessary to rely solely on its Marshal to police its quarters, it would probably have inherent authority to authorize the Marshal and Deputies to carry arms; however, there would be no basis for assuming inherent authority in the Court to authorize possession of arms by its Judges. A state could not constitutionally require a federal official whose duties necessitate carrying firearms to obtain a firearms license. 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/20806/download.
10/3/1967
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Voluntary legal services to the poor
5/16/2022