Reading Room Document
The Legal Significance of Presidential Signing Statements
Many Presidents have used signing statements to make substantive legal, constitutional, or administrative pronouncements on the bill being signed. These uses of Presidential signing statements generally serve legitimate and defensible purposes. 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/20446/download.
The OLC's Opinions
Opinions published by the OLC, including those released in response to our FOIA lawsuit