Reading Room Document

Department of Justice Representation in Federal CriminalProceedings

The Attorney General's statutory authority to provide legal representation to individual federal employees sued for acts occurring in the course of their official government duties does not extend to representation in a federal criminal proceeding, since in such a case the interests of the United States have been defined by the prosecuting authority to be adverse to those of the defendant. 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/22951/download.

February 11, 1982