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 31–40 of 2202
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Annotated index of 1979 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1979 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Annotated index of 1980 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1980 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Annotated index of 1982 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1983 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Annotated index of 1983 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1983 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Annotated index of 1984 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1984 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Annotated index of 1985 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1985 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Annotated index of 1986 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1986 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Annotated index of 1987 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1987 to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. This version of the index (annotated by Institute staff) shows which opinions are already publicly available (blue).
10/18/2021
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Index of unclassified OLC legal opinions from 1973, 1975–76, 1978–80, and 1982–87
The OLC disclosed this index—of unclassifed OLC legal opinions from the years 1973, 1975–76, 1978–80, and 1982–87—to the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University during the litigation in Francis v. DOJ. Indexes of unclassified OLC legal opinions for the years 1974, 1977, and 1981 are also available in this reading room.
10/18/2021
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Ways and Means Committee's Request for the Former President's Tax Returns and Related Tax Information Pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 6103(f)(1)
Section 6103(f)(1) of title 26, U.S. Code, vests the congressional tax committees with a broad right to receive tax information from the Department of the Treasury. It embodies a long-standing judgment of the political branches that the tax committees are uniquely suited to receive such information. The committees, however, cannot compel the Executive Branch to disclose such information without satisfying the constitutional requirement that the information could serve a legitimate legislative purpose. In assessing whether requested information could serve a legitimate legislative purpose, the Executive Branch must give due weight to Congress's status as a co-equal branch of government. Like courts, therefore, Executive Branch officials must apply a presumption that Legislative Branch officials act in good faith and in furtherance of legitimate objectives. When one of the congressional tax committees requests tax information pursuant to section 6103(f)(1), and has invoked facially valid reasons for its request, the Executive Branch should conclude that the request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose only in exceptional circumstances. The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has invoked sufficient reasons for requesting the former President's tax information. Under section 6103(f)(1), Treasury must furnish the information to the Committee. 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/olc/file/1419111/download.
7/30/2021