Reading Room Document

Protective Assertion of Executive Privilege Regarding White House Counsel's Office Documents

Executive privilege may properly be asserted with respect to the entire set of White House Counsel's Office documents currently being withheld from the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight of the House of Representatives, pending a final Presidential decision on the matter. This would be a protective assertion of executive privilege designed to ensure the President's ability to make a final decision, after consultation with the Attorney General, as to which specific documents are deserving of a conclusive claim of executive privilege. 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/20056/download.

May 8, 1996