Office of Legal Counsel: Difference between revisions

In the first two years of the Obama Administration, OLC at least twice reached an outcome with which Administration officials disagreed. In June 2011, ''[[New York Times]]'' reporter [[Charlie Savage (author)|Charlie Savage]] revealed that President Obama took the unusual step of overruling the Office of Legal Counsel's advice with respect to the legality of military action in Libya. OLC's written opinions have historically been considered binding on the executive branch, unless they are overturned by the attorney general or president.<ref>{{cite news|last=Savage|first=Charlie|author-link=Charlie Savage (author)|date=June 17, 2011|title=2 Top Lawyers Lost to Obama in Libya War Policy Debate|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/world/africa/18powers.html|access-date=3 July 2020}}</ref> In 2009, [[Eric Holder|attorney general Eric Holder]] overturned an unpublished OLC opinion that had concluded that a D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress was unconstitutional.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Johnson|first=Carrie|date=2009-04-01|title=Some in Justice Department See D.C. Vote in House as Unconstitutional|language=en-US|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033104426.html|access-date=2018-08-18|issn=0190-8286}}</ref>