A Call for Institutional Reform of the Office of Legal Counsel

by BRADLEY LIPTON

The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has been deemed “the most important government office you’ve never heard of” by Newsweek magazine. Indeed, the office is extraordinarily powerful, standing as the legal arbiter of what the executive branch can and cannot do. With great power, so the saying goes, comes great responsibility—to fairly and forthrightly interpret the law, to hold the government back when it risks overreaching, and to settle disputes with an even hand. Yet during the Administration of George W. Bush, OLC let partisan political interests and ideology interfere with its function as fair-minded authority. As a result, the office has sanctioned— and the executive branch has pursued—legally unsound policies. This conduct most prominently entered the public consciousness in two incidents: the sanctioning of torture by U.S. military forces and the politicization of hiring at the Department of Justice. The nomination of OLC head Dawn Johnsen has also recently prompted controversy.

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