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).
Some opinion descriptions were drafted by the OLC, some were prepared by Knight First Amendment Institute staff, and some were generated using AI tools.
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 61–70 of 2214
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Constitutionality of the Commissioner of Social Security's Tenure Protection
The President may remove the Commissioner of Social Security at will notwithstanding the statutory limitation on removal in 42 U.S.C. § 902(a)(3). The conclusion that the removal restriction is constitutionally unenforceable does not affect the validity of the remainder of the statute. 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/1410736/download.
7/8/2021
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Treasury’s Cash Balance and the August 1, 2021 Debt Limit
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 suspended the debt limit through July 31, 2021. Starting August 1, 2021, that Act will raise the debt limit by an amount equal to certain new debt issued since passage of the Act. New debt counts toward the forthcoming debt limit only if it “was necessary to fund a commitment incurred pursuant to law by the Federal Government that required payment before August 1, 2021." This provision does not prevent the Department of the Treasury from applying to the forthcoming debt limit the debt it plans to issue to provide a prudential buffer of funds raised for pre-August 1 expenses, even if some or all of that buffer remains unspent at the end of the debt-limit suspension.
4/5/2024
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Whether Section 564 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Prohibits Entities from Requiring the Use of a Vaccine Subject to an Emergency Use Authorization
Section 564(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III) of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act concerns only the provision of information to potential vaccine recipients and does not prohibit public or private entities from imposing vaccination requirements for a vaccine that is subject to an emergency use authorization. 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/1415446/download.
7/6/2021
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Authority of the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery to Oversee Programs Established Under the CARES Act
The jurisdiction of the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery is limited to oversight of programs established under the Coronavirus Economic Stabilization Act of 2020. 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/1390936/download.
4/29/2021
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Annotated index of 1945 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1945 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).
4/15/2021
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Annotated index of 1946 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1946 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).
4/15/2021
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Annotated index of 1947 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1947 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).
4/15/2021
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Annotated index of 1948 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1948 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).
4/15/2021
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Annotated index of 1949 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1949 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).
4/15/2021
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Annotated index of 1950 unclassified OLC legal opinions
The OLC disclosed a preliminary index of all unclassified OLC legal opinions issued in 1950 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).
4/15/2021