A government watchdog group can’t force the disclosure of any of the formal written opinions it was seeking from the US Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the DC Circuit ruled Friday.
The Freedom of Information Act doesn’t require the office to disclose its opinions regarding interagency disputes because they don’t constitute the working law of an agency or a final opinion made in the adjudication of cases, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said in a partial reversal of the lower court.
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel is the executive branch’s “preeminent legal advisor,” ...