Office of Legal Counsel OLC

The Attorney General has advised the President on legal questions since 1789. Over the twentieth century that advisory role was delegated to a specialized office, which took the name Office of Legal Counsel in 1953. Its two dozen or so lawyers, led by an Assistant Attorney General confirmed by the Senate, are among the most elite in the government, and several later became federal judges or Supreme Court justices, including William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia.

OLC answers legal questions from the President, the White House Counsel, and executive agencies, and its written opinions are treated as binding throughout the executive branch unless overruled by the Attorney General or the President. It reviews every executive order for form and legality before it is signed, resolves legal disputes between agencies, and often decides questions that never reach a court, such as the scope of the President's war powers or whether an agency may spend money a certain way.

Because its opinions can authorize controversial actions and courts may never review them, OLC is sometimes described as the executive branch's Supreme Court. Its 2002 opinions approving harsh interrogation techniques were later withdrawn, and its long-standing view that a sitting President cannot be indicted shaped the Watergate, Mueller, and later investigations. Many of its opinions remain confidential, prompting recurring calls from transparency advocates to publish more of them.