1

The Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to 

Information Protected by the Federal Wiretap Act, 

Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 

and Section 626 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Department of Justice officials may disclose information protected by the Federal Wiretap Act (Title III

of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968), Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of 

Criminal Procedure, and section 626 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act to the Department’s Office of 

Inspector General (“OIG”) in connection with many, but not all, of OIG’s investigations and reviews.

Section 6(a)(1) of the Inspector General Act of 1978 does not supersede the limitations on disclosure 

contained in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626.

Section 218 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, also does not 

supersede the limitations on disclosure contained in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626.

July 20, 2015

MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL*

You have asked whether the Department of Justice (the “Department”) may 

lawfully provide the Department’s Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) with 

access to documents containing certain kinds of statutorily protected information. 1

In particular, you have asked whether the Department may grant OIG access, in 

connection with OIG audits, investigations, and reviews, to information protected 

by the Federal Wiretap Act, Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets 

Act of 1968, as amended, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510–2522 (“Title III”); Rule 6(e) of the 

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (“Rule 6(e)”); and section 626 of the Fair 

Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681u (“FCRA”). Subject to certain exceptions, 

 

* Editor’s Note: Since this opinion was issued, Congress amended section 6(a) of the Inspector 

General Act to provide that inspectors general are authorized “to have timely access to all records, 

reports, audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, or other materials available to the 

applicable establishment which relate to the programs and operations with respect to which that Inspector 

General ha responsibilities under this Act . . . notwithstanding any other provision of law, except 

pursuant to any provision of law enacted by Congress that expressly . . . refers to the Inspector General; 

and . . . limits the right of access of the Inspector General.” Inspector General Empowerment Act of 2016, 

Pub. L. No. 114-317, sec. 5(1), § 6(a)(1)(A), (B) (codified at 5 U.S.C. app. § 6(a)(1)(A), (B)). The 

amended statute also provides a special procedure for access to “Federal grand jury materials protected 

from disclosure pursuant to rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.” Id. § 6(a)(1)(C)). We 

analyzed inspector general access under statutory provisions similar to those in the amended section 6(a) 

in Authority of the Department of Justice to Disclose Statutorily Protected Materials to Its Inspector 

General in Light of Section 540 of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations 

Act, 2016, 40 Op. O.L.C. __ (Apr. 27, 2016), http://www.justice.gov/olc/opinions.htm.

1 See Memorandum for Karl Thompson, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, 

from James M. Cole, Deputy Attorney General (May 24, 2014) (“Opinion Request”). Our Office received 

a request for an opinion on the same subject in 2011, but that request was withdrawn. See Letter for 

Cynthia Schnedar, Acting Inspector General, from James M. Cole, Deputy Attorney General (Mar. 16, 

2012). In preparing this opinion, we have considered views submitted in connection with both requests.
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

2

each of these statutes restricts the disclosure of particular categories of information:

Title III limits the Department’s authority to disclose the contents of intercepted 

communications; Rule 6(e) limits the Department’s authority to disclose grand jury 

materials; and section 626 of FCRA limits the authority of the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation (“FBI”) to disclose consumer information obtained pursuant to 

National Security Letters issued under section 626. At the same time, however, 

section 6(a)(1) of the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, 5 U.S.C. app. (the 

“IG Act”), authorizes OIG “to have access to all records, reports, audits, reviews, 

documents, papers, recommendations, or other material” available to the 

Department and relevant to the programs and operations OIG is charged with 

reviewing. 5 U.S.C. app. § 6(a)(1).

In views letters submitted in connection with the preparation of this opinion, 

OIG, together with certain other interested entities, argues that section 6(a)(1) of the 

IG Act grants it an unqualified right of access to Department records relevant to its 

audits, investigations, and reviews, notwithstanding any limitations on disclosure 

imposed by Title III, Rule 6(e), or section 626 of FCRA. OIG also argues that, even 

leaving section 6(a)(1) aside, the relevant statutory exceptions in Title III, Rule 6(e), 

and section 626 permit the Department and its components to disclose protected 

information to OIG when that information is pertinent to its audits, investigations, 

or reviews. Certain other Department components disagree, arguing that the 

statutory exceptions in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 permit disclosure of 

protected information to OIG only in a limited set of circumstances, and that the 

limits on disclosure apply even when OIG requests material under section 6(a)(1) 

of the IG Act. 2

 2 See E-mail for John E. Bies, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from 

William M. Blier, General Counsel, OIG (Apr. 29, 2015 6:37 PM) (“OIG 2015 E-mail”); Memorandum 

for the Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector 

General (June 24, 2014) (“OIG 2014 Memorandum”); Memorandum for the Attorney General from 

Cynthia A. Schnedar, Acting Inspector General (Dec. 16, 2011) (“OIG Grand Jury Memorandum”); 

Memorandum for the Deputy Attorney General from Cynthia A. Schnedar, Acting Inspector General 

(Dec. 16, 2011) (“OIG Title III Memorandum”); Memorandum for the Deputy Attorney General from 

Cynthia A. Schnedar, Acting Inspector General (Dec. 6, 2011) (“OIG FCRA Memorandum”);

Memorandum for Caroline D. Krass, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal 

Counsel, from Carol F. Ochoa, Assistant Inspector General, Oversight and Review Division (Mar. 9, 

2011) (“OIG Supplemental Memorandum”); Memorandum for Paul P. Colborn, Special Counsel, Office 

of Legal Counsel, from Carol F. Ochoa, Assistant Inspector General, Oversight and Review Division 

(Dec. 17, 2010) (“OIG Memorandum”); see also Memorandum for John Bies, Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal 

Division (July 14, 2014); Letter for John E. Bies, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal 

Counsel, from Phyllis K. Fong, Chair, and Lynne A. McFarland, Vice Chair, Council of the Inspectors 

General on Integrity and Efficiency (“CIGIE”) (June 24, 2014); Memorandum for John E. Bies, Deputy 

Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from G. Bradley Weinsheimer, Deputy Counsel, 

Office of Professional Responsibility (June 24, 2014); E-mail for John E. Bies, Deputy Assistant 

Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Jocelyn Aqua, National Security Division (Mar. 2, 2012 

3:54 PM) (“NSD E-mail”); Memorandum for Virginia A. Seitz, Assistant Attorney General, Office of 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

3

For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that the statutory exceptions in 

Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 of FCRA permit the Department to disclose to 

OIG the covered information it seeks in most, but not all, of the circumstances in 

which OIG might request it. In particular, Title III permits Department officials to 

disclose to OIG the contents of intercepted communications when doing so could 

aid the disclosing official or OIG in the performance of their duties related to law 

enforcement, including duties related to Department leadership’s supervision of law 

enforcement activities on a programmatic or policy basis. Rule 6(e) permits 

disclosure of grand jury materials to OIG if a qualifying attorney determines that 

such disclosure could assist her in the performance of her criminal law enforcement 

duties, including any supervisory law enforcement duties she may have. And FCRA 

permits the FBI to disclose to OIG consumer information obtained pursuant to 

section 626 if such disclosure could assist in the approval or conduct of foreign 

counterintelligence investigations, including in the supervision of such 

investigations on a programmatic or policy basis. In our view, however, Title III and 

Rule 6(e) forbid disclosures that have either an attenuated or no connection with the 

conduct of the Department’s criminal law enforcement programs or operations, and 

section 626 of FCRA forbids disclosures that have either an attenuated or no 

connection with the approval or conduct of foreign counterintelligence 

investigations.

We further conclude that, to the extent that Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 

prohibit Department officials from disclosing information to OIG, section 6(a)(1) 

of the IG Act does not override these prohibitions. Under longstanding interpretive 

principles, general access provisions like section 6(a)(1) are generally construed not 

to override specific, carefully drawn limitations on disclosure like Title III, 

Rule 6(e), and section 626 unless Congress has clearly indicated that it intends the 

general access provision to have that effect. And in our view, the text of the IG Act 

contains no clear indication that Congress intended section 6(a)(1) to override

Title III, Rule 6(e), or section 626. The Act’s legislative history, moreover, 

 

Legal Counsel, from Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division (Feb. 16, 2012); 

Letter for John E. Bies, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Phyllis K. 

Fong, Chair, and Carl Clinefelter, Vice Chair, CIGIE (Oct. 7, 2011); Memorandum for the Office of the 

Deputy Attorney General, from Patrick W. Kelley, Acting General Counsel, FBI (Oct. 5, 2011); 

Memorandum for John Bies, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Lanny 

A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division (Apr. 12, 2011); Memorandum for Jonathan 

G. Cedarbaum, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, from Valerie 

Caproni, General Counsel, FBI (Jan. 13, 2011) (“FBI Memorandum”). 

In addition, although the Office does not solicit views from outside the Executive Branch, we 

received a letter concerning the issues addressed in this opinion from Senator Charles E. Grassley and 

Representative John Conyers, then-Ranking Members of the Senate and House Committees on the 

Judiciary. See Letter for Karl R. Thompson, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, 

from Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, and John Conyers, 

Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives (Oct. 10, 2014). We 

appreciate Senator Grassley’s and Representative Conyers’ interest in these issues, and have considered 

their views in preparing this opinion.
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

4

affirmatively indicates that Congress expected an inspector general’s right of access 

to be subject to statutory limits on disclosure.

In reaching these conclusions, our Office’s role has not been to decide what 

access OIG should receive as a matter of policy. Rather, we have endeavored to 

determine as a matter of law, using established tools of statutory construction, how 

best to reconcile the strong privacy protections embodied in Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626 with the interest in access reflected in section 6(a)(1) of the IG Act.

This opinion has four parts. In Part I, we set forth some statutory background 

related to the IG Act, and explain the potential statutory conflict that arises when 

OIG, relying on the IG Act’s general access provision, requests material that is also 

covered by the nondisclosure provisions in Title III, Rule 6(e), or section 626 of 

FCRA. In Part II, we examine Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 to determine 

whether the exceptions in those statutes permit disclosure of the protected materials 

OIG seeks, thereby avoiding the potential conflict between those statutes and the IG 

Act. In Part III, having concluded that this conflict cannot be avoided in all 

circumstances, we explain why, in our view, the general access provision in section

6(a)(1) of the IG Act does not override the specific protections of sensitive information contained in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626. Finally, in Part IV, we discuss 

a Fiscal Year 2015 appropriations rider concerning the disclosure of Department 

materials to OIG and conclude that it too does not abrogate the specific protections 

of sensitive information found in those statutes. 3

I.

Congress enacted the IG Act in 1978 to “create independent and objective units” 

within the Executive Branch that would promote the integrity of executive agencies 

and keep executive officials and Congress fully informed about their operations.

5 U.S.C. app. § 2. To achieve these goals, the Act created an Office of Inspector 

General in a large number of federal agencies. Id. §§ 2(A), 8G(a)–(b), 12(2).4 Each 

office is led by an inspector general who is charged with auditing, investigating, 

detecting fraud and abuse in, and making recommendations and reports about the 

agency’s “programs and operations.” Id. §§ 3(a), 4(a), 5. Each inspector general 

must “keep the head of [his agency] and the Congress fully and currently informed” 

 3 You have asked only whether it would be “lawful[]” for the Department to provide OIG information 

protected by Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 of FCRA. Opinion Request. Accordingly, we do not 

address in this opinion whether and, if so, under what circumstances the Department could lawfully 

withhold information it is legally permitted to disclose.

4 The IG Act uses the term “establishment” to refer to those enumerated agencies, departments, 

commissions, boards, and corporations in which Congress created an Office of the Inspector General. 

5 U.S.C. app. § 12(2). The Act also refers to “designated Federal entit[ies],” defined to include a different 

list of government corporations and other entities, and directs that “there shall be established and 

maintained in each designated Federal entity an Office of Inspector General.” Id. § 8G(b). Throughout 

this opinion, we will refer to the federal establishments and entities subject to the IG Act, collectively, 

as “agencies.”
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

5

about fraud, abuse, deficiencies, and other serious problems in “the administration 

of programs and operations administered or financed by such” agency, and 

“recommend corrective action” to address any problems he identifies. Id. § 4(a)(5).

Inspectors general must “report to” and are placed “under the general supervision 

of” the heads of their agencies. However, the head of an agency generally may not 

“prevent or prohibit the Inspector General from initiating, carrying out, or 

completing any audit or investigation.” Id. § 3(a). 

Pursuant to their statutory mandate, inspectors general engage in a wide variety 

of audits, investigations, and reviews. The Department’s OIG, for example, conducts investigations of suspected criminal wrongdoing by Department employees; 

investigations of administrative misconduct that may or may not rise to the level of 

criminal wrongdoing; and broader reviews of Department programs and operations 

that seek to assess whether the programs are lawful, well-run, or otherwise in the 

public interest. See Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 

Semiannual Report to Congress: Apr. 1, 2014–Sept. 30, 2014, at 13–14 (Oct. 31, 

2014) (“Semiannual Report”); 28 C.F.R. § 0.29a(b)(2), (4). The Department’s OIG 

also conducts financial and administrative audits of Department components. See 

Semiannual Report at 13; 28 C.F.R. § 0.29a(b)(1). Significantly, however, while the 

IG Act affords inspectors general broad authority to investigate an agency’s 

programs and operations, it does not in most cases allow inspectors general to 

conduct activities “constituting an integral part of the programs involved,” Inspector 

General Authority to Conduct Regulatory Investigations, 13 Op. O.L.C. 54, 62 

(1989) (“Authority to Conduct Regulatory Investigations”), and it prohibits the 

heads of federal agencies from transferring to inspectors general any of the agency’s 

“program operating responsibilities,” 5 U.S.C. app. § 9(a).5

The IG Act also grants inspectors general several enumerated authorities that 

help them carry out their statutory duties, such as the authority to issue subpoenas, 

take sworn testimony, and hire staff. See id. § 6(a)(4), (5), (7). Especially relevant 

here is the authority to obtain records and other materials from the agency over 

which an inspector general has investigative jurisdiction. This authority is set forth 

in section 6(a)(1), which provides:

[E]ach Inspector General, in carrying out the provisions of this Act, is 

authorized . . . to have access to all records, reports, audits, reviews, 

documents, papers, recommendations, or other material available to 

the applicable [agency] which relate to programs and operations with 

 5 Some of OIG’s statutory responsibilities, such as conducting investigations of suspected criminal 

wrongdoing by Department employees, see 5 U.S.C. app. § 8E(b)(2), (4), may involve the same kinds of 

activities as the “program operating responsibilities” of other Department components. The IG Act does 

not prevent OIG from carrying out these activities pursuant to its statutory authority. See Authority to 

Conduct Regulatory Investigations, 13 Op. O.L.C. at 66–67 & n.21.
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

6

respect to which that Inspector General has responsibilities under this 

Act.

Id. § 6(a)(1). In addition to granting each inspector general access to materials 

available to his agency and within his investigative jurisdiction, this provision 

implicitly imposes a corresponding duty on the applicable agency to provide the 

inspector general with such access upon request.

In the case of the Department (and certain other agencies), however, the IG Act 

qualifies this broad disclosure requirement. As originally enacted, the IG Act did not 

establish an Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. When Congress 

extended the Act’s provisions to the Department in 1988, see Inspector General Act 

Amendments of 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-504, § 102(c), 102 Stat. 2515, 2515–16, 

Congress limited OIG’s authority to investigate matters involving certain kinds of 

information, in recognition of the sensitivity of much of the Department’s work, see 

H.R. Rep. No. 100-1020, at 24 (1988) (Conf. Rep.). Specifically, section 8E(a)(1) of 

the Act provides that the Department’s Inspector General “shall be under the authority, 

direction, and control of the Attorney General with respect to audits or investigations, 

or the issuance of subpenas, which require access to sensitive information concerning” 

certain enumerated matters, such as “ongoing civil or criminal investigations or 

proceedings,” “undercover operations,” and “other matters the disclosure of which 

would constitute a serious threat to national security.” 5 U.S.C. app. § 8E(a)(1).

Section 8E(a)(2) similarly provides that the Attorney General may “prohibit the 

Inspector General from carrying out or completing any audit or investigation . . . if the 

Attorney General determines that such prohibition is necessary to prevent the 

disclosure of any information described under [section 8E(a)(1)] or to prevent the 

significant impairment to the national interests of the United States.” Id. § 8E(a)(2).

Section 8E thus provides a mechanism through which the Attorney General can 

“prevent the disclosure” of certain sensitive information to which OIG would 

otherwise be entitled under section 6(a)(1). Id.

The IG Act, moreover, is not in all circumstances the only statute that governs 

OIG’s access to Department materials. As noted above, in conducting its audits, 

investigations, and reviews, OIG has sometimes requested materials that include 

the contents of wire, oral, or electronic communications the Department has 

intercepted pursuant to Title III; information the Department has acquired in the 

course of grand jury proceedings; and consumer information the FBI has obtained 

using National Security Letters issued under section 626 of FCRA. And while 

such information falls within the broad terms of section 6(a)(1) of the IG Act, its 

use and disclosure is also regulated, and in many circumstances prohibited, by 

Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626.6 Specifically, as we discuss in more detail 

 

6 Because Congress enacted Rule 6(e) in 1977, see Pub. L. No. 95-78, § 2, 91 Stat. 319, 319, it is “by 

any definition . . . a statute.” Fund for Constitutional Gov’t v. Nat’l Archives & Records Serv., 656 F.2d 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

7

below, Title III bars investigative and law enforcement officers from using or 

disclosing the contents of lawfully intercepted communications unless a statutory 

exception to Title III’s disclosure prohibitions applies, see 18 U.S.C. § 2517, and 

imposes administrative, civil, and sometimes criminal sanctions for unauthorized 

disclosure, see id. §§ 2520(a), (f), (g), 2511(1)(e), (4)(a). Rule 6(e) prohibits 

“attorney[s] for the government” and other specified individuals from disclosing 

“a matter occurring before the grand jury” except pursuant to a specific exception, 

Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(2)(B), and makes a knowing violation of that prohibition 

punishable “as a contempt of court,” id. 6(e)(7). And section 626 of FCRA 

prohibits the FBI from disclosing consumer information obtained pursuant to a 

National Security Letter (a kind of written request for information in connection 

with a counterterrorism or intelligence investigation) except as authorized by one 

of the exceptions provided in the statute, see 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(f), and makes 

unauthorized disclosure a basis for civil damages and disciplinary action, see id. 

§ 1681u(i)–(j).

As a result, in responding to OIG requests for materials covered by Title III, 

Rule 6(e), or section 626, Department officials face potentially conflicting statutory 

directives. Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 prohibit the Department from 

disclosing such materials—on pain of contempt, administrative and civil sanctions, 

and sometimes criminal penalties—unless a statutory exception applies. The IG Act, 

in contrast, requires the Department to disclose “all” materials that are available to 

the Department, relate to an OIG review of programs or operations within its 

investigative jurisdiction, and are not covered by a determination to withhold them 

under section 8E. 

Where two statutes govern the same subject matter, the Supreme Court has 

instructed that the statutes are to be read in pari materia and construed, where 

possible, as part of a single and coherent regulatory scheme. See Morton v. Mancari, 

417 U.S. 535, 551 (1974) (“When there are two acts upon the same subject, the rule 

is to give effect to both if possible.” (quoting United States v. Borden Co., 308 U.S. 

188, 198 (1939))); see also, e.g., FCC v. NextWave Personal Commc’ns, 537 U.S. 

293, 304 (2003); J.E.M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred Int’l, Inc., 534 U.S. 124, 

143–44 (2001); Vimar Seguros y Reaseguros, S.A. v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U.S. 528, 

533 (1995); Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co., 467 U.S. 986, 1018 (1984). Only where 

a harmonious construction of two statutes is impossible should one be construed as 

overriding or implicitly repealing the other. Morton, 417 U.S. at 551. Accordingly, 

before considering whether the general access requirement in section 6(a)(1) of the 

IG Act overrides the disclosure restrictions in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 

of FCRA, we examine the latter three statutes to determine whether and to what 

extent they permit disclosures to OIG. 

 

856, 867 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (concluding that grand jury information protected from disclosure by Rule 6(e) 

is information “specifically exempted from disclosure by statute” within the meaning of Exemption 3 of 

the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(3)).
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

8

II.

A.

We begin with Title III. Congress enacted this statute in the wake of the Supreme 

Court’s decisions in Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41 (1967), and Katz v. United 

States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), which held that electronic surveillance constitutes a 

search subject to the limits imposed by the Fourth Amendment. In response to these 

rulings, Congress created a comprehensive statutory scheme governing the interception, use, and disclosure of wire, oral, and electronic communications, see 18

U.S.C. §§ 2510–2522, thereby establishing a mechanism through which law enforcement officials could conduct electronic surveillance in a manner that “me[t] the 

constitutional requirements” enunciated in Berger and Katz. United States v. U.S. Dist. 

Court for E. Dist. of Mich., S. Div., 407 U.S. 297, 302 (1972); see Scott v. United 

States, 436 U.S. 128, 130 (1978) (noting that Title III was intended to “provide law 

enforcement officials with some of the tools thought necessary to combat crime 

without unnecessarily infringing upon the right of individual privacy”). Title III 

permits the Attorney General and other Department leadership officials to authorize 

investigative or law enforcement officers to apply for court orders allowing them to 

intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510, 2516(1), 

(3), 2518(1)(a); see also id. § 2516(2) (authorizing applications by certain state 

attorneys). And it permits courts to grant such orders if the government makes a series 

of procedural and evidentiary showings, including a showing that the interception 

“may provide or has provided” evidence of any of dozens of enumerated federal 

offenses (or, for the interception of an electronic communication, evidence of “any 

Federal felony”). Id. §§ 2516(1), (3), 2518.

Once an investigative or law enforcement officer has lawfully intercepted a 

communication, Title III prohibits that officer from further disclosing the contents 

of the communication—and, as noted above, subjects her to potential 

administrative, civil, or criminal sanctions if she does so—unless section 2517 

authorizes the disclosure. See Title III Electronic Surveillance Material and the 

Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. 261, 270–71 n.12, 272 (2000) (“Title III 

Intelligence Community”); 18 U.S.C. § 2520(a), (f), (g) (authorizing civil damages 

and administrative discipline for willful disclosures); id. § 2511(1)(e), (4)(a) 

(authorizing criminal penalties for certain intentional disclosures). One provision in 

section 2517, section 2517(1), is particularly relevant here. It provides that

[a]ny investigative or law enforcement officer who, by any means 

authorized by this chapter, has obtained knowledge of the contents of 

any wire, oral, or electronic communication, or evidence derived 

therefrom, may disclose such contents to another investigative or law 

enforcement officer to the extent that such disclosure is appropriate to 

the proper performance of the official duties of the officer making or 

receiving the disclosure.
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

9

18 U.S.C. § 2517(1). This provision thus permits disclosure of the contents of a 

lawfully intercepted communication if the disclosure is made (1) by an 

“investigative or law enforcement officer,” (2) “to another investigative or law 

enforcement officer,” (3) “to [an] extent . . . appropriate to the proper performance 

of the official duties of the officer making or receiving the disclosure.” A separate 

provision in Title III, section 2510(7), defines an “[i]nvestigative or law 

enforcement officer” as “any officer of the United States or of a State or political 

subdivision thereof, who is empowered by law to conduct investigations of or to 

make arrests for offenses enumerated in this chapter, and any attorney authorized 

by law to prosecute or participate in the prosecution of such offenses.” Id. § 2510(7).

OIG contends that section 2517(1) authorizes Department investigative and law 

enforcement officers to disclose the contents of lawfully intercepted 

communications to OIG whenever OIG deems such information pertinent to any of 

its investigations. It observes that, in a prior opinion, this Office “determined that 

OIG agents . . . qualify as ‘investigative officers’ authorized to disclose or receive 

Title III information.” OIG 2014 Memorandum at 11 (citing Whether Agents of the 

Department of Justice Office of Inspector General are “Investigative or Law 

Enforcement Officers” Within the Meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 2510(7), 14 Op. O.L.C. 

107, 109–10 (1990) (“Investigative Officers”)). And OIG contends that disclosures

to assist in its audits, investigations, and reviews are invariably “appropriate to the 

proper performance of the official duties of the officer making or receiving the 

disclosure” for two different (and in its view independently sufficient) reasons. First, 

it argues that under an ordinary understanding of the term “official duties,” 

disclosing Title III materials to OIG will always be appropriate to both the official 

duties of the Department officials disclosing the materials (because those officials 

have a duty to cooperate with OIG’s audits, investigations, and reviews) and the 

official duties of the OIG agents receiving the materials (because the IG Act gives 

them a duty to investigate the Department). Second, OIG argues that even if “official 

duties” are limited to duties related to law enforcement—as this Office concluded 

in a 2000 opinion—all of OIG’s audits, investigations, and reviews still qualify for 

disclosure, because they involve either investigations of alleged criminal 

wrongdoing by Department employees, investigations of alleged administrative 

misconduct that might lead to discovery of criminal violations, or reviews of the 

Department’s criminal law enforcement programs for purposes of “supervision or 

oversight.” OIG Title III Memorandum at 2; see OIG 2014 Memorandum at 10–12; 

cf. OIG Supplemental Memorandum at 35–38. 

We address these arguments in the two sections that follow. In the first section, 

we conclude that OIG is correct that OIG agents qualify as “investigative officers” 

who may receive Title III information, but—consistent with the conclusion in our 

2000 opinion—disagree with OIG’s broad argument that Title III permits disclosure 

in connection with duties unrelated to law enforcement. In the second section, we 

substantially agree with OIG’s narrower argument—namely, that disclosures to 

OIG agents will frequently assist the official law-enforcement-related duties of 
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10

either the officer making or the officer receiving the disclosure. In particular, we 

conclude that Title III permits disclosure in connection with OIG reviews that 

concern, or are designed to develop recommendations about, the conduct of the 

Department’s criminal law enforcement programs, policies, or practices. As we 

explain, many—but not all—OIG investigations and reviews are likely to qualify 

for disclosure under this standard.

1.

OIG’s first argument is that section 2517(1) invariably permits Department 

officials to disclose Title III information to OIG agents. See OIG 2014 

Memorandum at 10–12. We agree that disclosures between Department officials 

and OIG agents generally comply with the statute’s first two requirements:

Numerous officers of the Department are “investigative or law enforcement 

officer[s]” entitled to disclose Title III information under section 2517(1), and OIG 

agents are “investigative or law enforcement officer[s]” entitled to receive such 

information. But, as we explain below, a prior opinion of this Office concluded that 

the statutory phrase “official duties” refers only to official duties related to law 

enforcement. That conclusion applies here, and means that disclosing information 

to OIG is not in itself, and without some further link to law enforcement, 

“appropriate to the proper performance of [an] official dut[y]” within the meaning 

of section 2517(1).

The first requirement for a disclosure under section 2517(1) is that it be made by 

an “investigative or law enforcement officer,” defined as an officer of the United 

States (or a State or locality) empowered to “conduct investigations of,” “make 

arrests for,” or, if the officer is an attorney, “prosecute or participate in the prosecution of” offenses enumerated in section 2516. 18 U.S.C. § 2510(7). Numerous 

officials in the Department qualify as “investigative or law enforcement officer[s]” 

who may disclose intercepted communications under this provision. The officers 

who typically possess Title III information, such as FBI agents, qualify as 

investigative or law enforcement officers by virtue of their authority to “investigat[e]” and “make arrests for” crimes enumerated in section 2516. Id.; see, e.g., 28 

C.F.R. § 0.85 (enumerating investigatory functions of the FBI). And prosecutors, 

such as Assistant United States Attorneys, qualify because they are federal officers 

“authorized by law to prosecute or participate in the prosecution of” enumerated 

offenses. 18 U.S.C. § 2510(7); see, e.g., 28 U.S.C. §§ 542, 547 (authorizing United 

States Attorneys and their assistants to prosecute federal offenses). Officers of the 

Department with leadership or supervisory responsibilities, such as the Attorney 

General and Deputy Attorney General, also qualify as investigative or law 

enforcement officers. They too are executive officers generally vested with 

authority to investigate, make arrests for, and prosecute offenses enumerated in 

section 2516. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. §§ 509, 515; 28 C.F.R. § 0.15(a). In addition, as 

we explain below, these officers participate in investigations, arrests, and 
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11

prosecutions through their direction and supervision of those actions on an 

individual or programmatic basis. See infra pp. 14–15.

Section 2517(1)’s second requirement is that the person receiving a disclosure of 

Title III material also be an investigative or law enforcement officer. As OIG 

observes, this Office has already concluded, in a 1990 opinion, that OIG agents 

“qualify as ‘investigative officer[s]’ under section 2510(7).” Investigative Officers,

14 Op. O.L.C. at 109 (alteration in original). OIG agents, as officers in the Executive 

Branch, are “officer[s] of the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 2510(7). Further, as we 

explained in our 1990 opinion, the IG Act “entrusts [OIG] with investigative, auditing, 

and other responsibilities relevant to the detection and prosecution of fraud and abuse 

within [Department] programs or operations.” 14 Op. O.L.C. at 109–10. When OIG 

agents, exercising those responsibilities, “discover evidence that . . . Department 

personnel, contractors, or grantees are engaging in [offenses enumerated in section 

2516]”—such as “bribery of public officials and witnesses,” “influencing or injuring 

an officer, juror, or witness,” or “obstruction of criminal investigations”—they have 

the authority to investigate those crimes. Id. at 110. Indeed, the portion of the IG Act 

that created OIG specifically authorizes it to “investigate allegations of criminal 

wrongdoing” by Department employees. 5 U.S.C. app. § 8E(b)(2), (4); see also id. 

§ 8E(d); 28 C.F.R. §§ 0.29a(b)(2), 0.29c(a). Furthermore, upon learning of “reasonable grounds to believe there has been a violation of Federal criminal law,” inspectors 

general are required to “report [such violations] expeditiously to the Attorney 

General,” Investigative Officers, 14 Op. O.L.C. at 109 (quoting 5 U.S.C. app. § 4(d)), 

presumably so that the Attorney General can consider the matter for prosecution.

OIG’s investigative jurisdiction thus “carries with it the power to investigate offenses 

enumerated in section 2516,” and as a result, OIG agents—“including special agents, 

auditors and investigators”—are “investigative officers” entitled to receive 

disclosures of Title III information under section 2517(1). Id. at 110.7

The conclusion that both Department officials who maintain Title III information 

and OIG agents who seek it are “investigative or law enforcement officer[s]” under 

section 2517(1), however, does not mean that those officers may share Title III 

information with each other in all circumstances. Section 2517(1)’s third 

requirement is that any disclosure of Title III information between qualifying 

officers must be “appropriate to the proper performance of the official duties of the 

officer making or receiving the disclosure.” 18 U.S.C. § 2517(1). In our 2000 

Title III Intelligence Community opinion, this Office concluded that the phrase 

“official duties,” despite its apparent breadth, includes only the “law enforcement

duties” of the relevant officer—that is, those “duties related to the prevention, 

investigation, or prosecution of criminal conduct.” 24 Op. O.L.C. at 264 n.7, 265 

(emphasis in original). We reasoned that if “official duties” were read to “permit 

 7 Some OIG agents may also qualify as “investigative or law enforcement officer[s]” because they 

are authorized by the Attorney General, pursuant to specific provisions in the IG Act, to make warrantless 

arrests and execute arrest warrants. See 5 U.S.C. app. § 6(e); 28 C.F.R. § 0.29j(d)–(e).
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

12

disclosure . . . for purposes unrelated to law enforcement,” section 2517(1) “would 

constitute only a highly elastic limitation on disclosure among law enforcement 

officers”—allowing, for instance, an attorney with both civil and criminal duties to 

receive wiretap information for use in civil litigation. Id. at 265. We found this result 

“unlikely in light of Congress’s effort in Title III to protect privacy to the maximum 

extent possible, consistent with permitting electronic surveillance for law 

enforcement purposes.” Id.; see id. at 267–69 (discussing the statute’s purpose). We 

also noted that Title III’s legislative history demonstrated that “Congress sought in 

§ 2517 to serve ‘criminal law investigation and enforcement objectives,’” id. at 265 

(quoting Am. Friends Serv. Comm. v. Webster, 720 F.2d 29, 73 (D.C. Cir. 1983)), 

and observed, based on a survey of judicial decisions applying section 2517, that 

“the uses of Title III information permitted by courts have all related to law 

enforcement,” id. at 266. We therefore concluded that “the phrase ‘appropriate to 

the proper performance of . . . official duties’” in section 2517 “authorizes 

disclosure of Title III material only for purposes related to law enforcement.” Id. at 

265, 267.

OIG argues that this conclusion does not apply to disclosures made to OIG in 

connection with its investigations. It points out that our Title III Intelligence 

Community opinion concerned disclosures of Title III information to members of 

the intelligence community, who we concluded were not “investigative or law 

enforcement officer[s]” within the meaning of sections 2510(7) and 2517. See OIG 

2014 Memorandum at 11. As a result, our conclusion there—that Title III 

information could be disclosed to members of the intelligence community in certain 

circumstances—was based not on section 2517(1), but on section 2517(2), a 

different exception that permits investigative or law enforcement officers to “use”

Title III information, including by disclosing it, “to the extent such use is appropriate 

to the proper performance of [the] official duties” of the disclosing officer. 18

U.S.C. § 2517(2). As OIG observes, its agents are investigative or law enforcement 

officers, and thus, unlike members of the intelligence community, may in principle 

receive disclosures on the basis of their own “official duties” under section 2517(1), 

rather than the duties of the disclosing officer. OIG argues that, as a result, the 

conclusions in Title III Intelligence Community should not control the scope of the 

disclosures it may receive. See OIG 2014 Memorandum at 11.

We disagree. Both sections 2517(1) and 2517(2) use the phrase “official duties,” 

and as we explained in Title III Intelligence Community, “under basic canons of 

statutory construction,” these “identical phrase[s] . . . must be interpreted consistently” each time they appear in the same statute. 24 Op. O.L.C. at 265 (citing 

Sullivan v. Stroop, 496 U.S. 478, 484–85 (1990); United Sav. Ass’n v. Timbers of 

Inwood Forest Assocs., 484 U.S. 365, 371 (1988)). Indeed, the Title III Intelligence 

Community opinion expressly analyzed section 2517(1) to determine how best to 

interpret “official duties” for purposes of section 2517(2), and concluded, in the 

discussion summarized above, that the phrase was best read in both sections as 

limited to a relevant official’s law enforcement duties. See id. Nor is there any basis 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

13

for understanding the “official duties” of a receiving officer in section 2517(1) to 

have a broader scope than those of a disclosing officer in the same section, since the 

same phrase applies equally to both kinds of officers. See 18 U.S.C. § 2517(1) 

(requiring that disclosure assist “the official duties of the officer making or receiving

the disclosure” (emphasis added)). The interpretation of “official duties” in Title III 

Intelligence Community thus extends to section 2517(1), and applies to the duties of 

both receiving and disclosing officers.

For this reason, we disagree with OIG’s contention that “providing documents 

to . . . OIG in the context of [any] duly authorized review would typically be 

‘appropriate to the proper performance of the official duties of the official 

making . . . the disclosure’” solely because of “that official’s duty to cooperate fully 

with . . . OIG’s investigations and reviews.” OIG 2014 Memorandum at 11. The 

duty to cooperate with OIG’s investigations is certainly an “official dut[y]” in the 

broadest sense of that term. But that duty does not invariably “relate to law 

enforcement.” Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 270. Indeed, we 

explained in Title III Intelligence Community that neither an officer’s “general duty 

to share [information] with another government entity,” nor the duty to respond to 

a “proper request or demand by a congressional committee,” automatically 

constitutes an “official dut[y]” within the meaning of section 2517(1). Id. at 264, 

271. Similarly, OIG’s duty (as the potential receiving officer) to audit, investigate, 

and review the Department’s activities does not automatically justify Title III 

disclosure, because it too may not always relate to law enforcement. As a result, we 

do not believe Department investigative or law enforcement officers can disclose 

Title III information to OIG without regard to whether the disclosure would be 

appropriate to the proper performance of an official duty related to law enforcement.

2.

OIG’s second argument is that even if (as we have concluded) “official duties” 

are limited to duties related to law enforcement, OIG’s audits, investigations, and 

reviews still qualify for disclosure, because they involve investigations of alleged 

criminal wrongdoing or administrative (and potentially criminal) misconduct by 

Department employees, or reviews of the Department’s criminal law enforcement 

programs for purposes of “supervision and oversight.” OIG Title III Memorandum 

at 2. For the reasons set forth below, we agree that many—but not all—of OIG’s 

investigations and reviews are sufficiently related to law enforcement to support 

disclosure based on either the official duties of the officer making the disclosure, or 

the official duties of the officer receiving it. 

We begin with those disclosures appropriate to the official duties of the officer 

“making . . . the disclosure.” 18 U.S.C. § 2517(1). As explained above, numerous 

officers within the Department qualify as “investigative or law enforcement 

officer[s]” under section 2510(7). Their “official duties” related to law enforcement—

and, thus, the functions in connection with which they may disclose Title III 
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14

information—vary according to their roles. Line-level officials, such as FBI agents 

and Assistant U.S. Attorneys, perform duties related to law enforcement through onthe-ground activities, such as investigating, making arrests for, and prosecuting 

crimes. See id. § 2510(7). Higher-ranking Department officials perform duties related 

to law enforcement when they direct and supervise those activities, such as by 

approving search warrant and wiretap applications, managing criminal investigations, 

and setting trial strategy—all functions that are integral parts of the prevention, 

investigation, and prosecution of criminal offenses. See, e.g., United States v. Sells 

Eng’g, Inc., 463 U.S. 418, 429 n.11 (1983) (recognizing that a prosecutor “conduct[s] 

criminal matters” in his role as a “supervisor” as well as by appearing before a grand 

jury); 18 U.S.C. § 2510(7) (stating that any attorney who is authorized to “participate 

in the prosecution” of an enumerated offense is an investigative or law enforcement 

officer). These officials may therefore disclose Title III information to OIG agents to 

the extent that doing so would be appropriate to the proper performance of these 

various functions, including “for the purpose of obtaining assistance” in carrying them 

out. Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 269; see id. at 261.8

In addition, in our view, members of Department leadership perform official 

duties related to law enforcement when they supervise law enforcement activities 

on a programmatic or policy basis—for example, when they issue guidelines for the 

exercise of prosecutorial discretion, or set rules governing the conduct of line-level 

officers. See, e.g., Memorandum for Heads of Department of Justice Components 

and United States Attorneys from the Attorney General, Re: Federal Prosecution 

Priorities (Aug. 12, 2013) (listing factors that prosecutors should consider in setting 

prosecution priorities); FBI, Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (Oct. 

15, 2011) (establishing policies for the conduct of the FBI’s domestic 

investigations). Although these programmatic and policy decisions are somewhat 

removed from on-the-ground law enforcement activities, they frequently affect 

these activities just as directly as supervisory decisions made on a case-by-case 

basis: A Department policy prohibiting a particular law enforcement tactic or 

mandating certain charging decisions, for instance, can affect the conduct of a large 

number of investigations and prosecutions all at once. See Van de Kamp v. 

Goldstein, 555 U.S. 335, 346 (2009) (stating that “supervisory prosecutors” are 

entitled to the same degree of prosecutorial immunity when formulating “general 

methods of supervision and training” as when taking “actions related to an individual trial,” because both activities are “directly connected with the prosecutor’s 

basic trial advocacy duties” (emphasis in original)). Such broad-based supervision 

thus “relate[s] to law enforcement” in the ordinary sense of that phrase. Cf. 

 8 For example, if OIG investigated a Department employee for alleged criminal misconduct and then 

referred the matter for prosecution, the prosecutor might subsequently seek to consult with OIG about its 

investigation in the course of preparing or conducting the prosecution. During that consultation, the 

prosecutor could disclose Title III information to OIG if doing so would help the prosecutor prepare or 

conduct the prosecution.
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

15

Disclosure of Grand Jury Material to the Intelligence Community, 21 Op. 

O.L.C. 159, 171 (1997) (“Rule 6(e) Intelligence Community”) (stating that the 

Attorney General’s “duty to enforce federal criminal law” within the meaning of 

Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(ii) includes the supervision of “a broad criminal law 

enforcement program”).

Moreover, given the size of the Department, such programmatic and policy 

supervision is a primary means by which the Attorney General and other 

Department leadership officials evaluate and direct the Department’s law 

enforcement activities, including its use of Title III authorities. If that supervision 

did not constitute an “official dut[y]” within the meaning of section 2517(1), then 

leadership officials would be unable to programmatically review the contents of 

wiretaps in order to ensure that officers were exercising their Title III authorities 

responsibly and lawfully, or to conduct general management and supervision of 

Department law enforcement activities that made use of Title III materials. We think 

it unlikely that Congress intended to handicap leadership officials in this way.

Indeed, interpreting Title III to impair programmatic or policy supervision of the 

use of Title III authorities and materials would undermine Congress’s goal of 

“protect[ing] privacy to the maximum extent possible, consistent with permitting 

electronic surveillance for law enforcement purposes.” Title III Intelligence 

Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 265; cf. United States v. Giordano, 469 F.2d 522, 527 

(4th Cir. 1972) (noting that “[b]ecause of the delicate nature of the power to initiate 

surveillance applications,” Congress took care to ensure that “the implementation” 

of this authority “was reserved to” high-level leadership officials within the 

Department). These considerations reinforce our conclusion that supervising law 

enforcement activities on a programmatic or policy basis qualifies as an “official 

dut[y]” related to law enforcement within the meaning of section 2517(1).

A Department leadership official may therefore disclose Title III materials to 

OIG agents when doing so would be appropriate to the performance of that official’s 

duty to supervise law enforcement activities on a programmatic or policy basis.

And, while we will not attempt to specify in the abstract all situations in which such 

disclosures would be appropriate, we think that, in general, a wide range of OIG 

investigations and reviews would likely assist Department leadership officials in 

conducting such programmatic and policy supervision. One of the central purposes 

of OIG’s reviews and investigations is to assist Department leadership in 

supervising the Department: As noted above, Congress enacted the IG Act in part 

to “provide a means for keeping the head of [each] [agency] . . . fully and currently 

informed about problems and deficiencies relating to the administration of [the 

agency’s] programs and operations and the necessity for and progress of corrective 

action,” 5 U.S.C. app. § 2(3), and it assigned OIG the statutory duty of providing 

reports and recommendations about such issues to Department leadership, see id. 

§ 4(a)(5). Moreover, consistent with Congress’s purpose, “OIG’s reports of its 

investigations and reviews have historically provided the Attorney General and 

Deputy Attorney General with critical advice, information, and insights in 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

16

connection with the exercise of their supervisory responsibilities over the 

Department’s programs and operations.” Letter for Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector 

General, from Sally Quillian Yates, Acting Deputy Attorney General, at 2 (Apr. 23, 

2015) (“Yates Letter”). We therefore believe that it would generally be “appropriate 

to the proper performance of the official duties” of a member of the Department’s 

leadership to disclose Title III information to OIG agents in connection with 

investigations or reviews of law enforcement programs and operations that could 

inform supervisory decisions made by Department leadership about such programs 

and operations; that is, investigations or reviews that concern, or are designed to 

develop recommendations about, the manner in which the Department prevents, 

investigates, or prosecutes crimes.9

We now turn to disclosures that would be appropriate to the proper performance of 

the official duties of the officer “receiving the disclosure”—in this case, OIG agents.

As noted above, this Office has previously concluded that OIG agents qualify as 

“investigative officer[s]” under section 2510(7) by virtue of their authority to 

investigate allegations of criminal wrongdoing—including offenses enumerated in 

section 2516—by Department employees, contractors, and grantees. Investigative 

Officers, 14 Op. O.L.C. at 109 (alteration in original). Because investigations of 

alleged criminal wrongdoing are plainly “official duties” related to law enforcement, 

section 2517(1) authorizes Department investigative and law enforcement officers to 

disclose Title III information to OIG agents as “appropriate to the proper performance” of OIG’s investigations of alleged criminal wrongdoing by Department 

employees, contractors, or grantees, including administrative misconduct investigations that have a reasonable prospect of identifying criminal wrongdoing.

We further believe that OIG officials perform “official duties” related to law 

enforcement within the meaning of section 2517(1) when they conduct 

investigations and reviews that could help Department leadership officials make 

supervisory decisions regarding the Department’s law enforcement programs, 

policies, and practices. As we have already noted, Congress placed OIG within the 

Department of Justice, the nation’s principal law enforcement agency, see 5 U.S.C. 

app. §§ 2(A), 12(2); 28 U.S.C. §§ 501 et seq., and assigned it the “duty and 

responsibility” of reviewing the Department’s programs and operations, including 

its programs and operations related to law enforcement, in order to help the Attorney 

 

9 For example, the initial request for this opinion was prompted by three recent OIG reviews: a review 

of Operation Fast and Furious (an investigation of firearms trafficking, conducted by the Department’s 

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, that employed a controversial investigative 

technique); a review of the FBI’s alleged misuse of the material witness statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3144, to 

detain persons suspected of criminal conduct rather than potential witnesses; and a review of the FBI’s 

use of National Security and Exigent letters. All three of these investigations concerned operational 

questions related to the Department’s prevention, investigation, or prosecution of criminal conduct, and 

all promised to directly inform Department leadership’s supervision of these activities. Department 

leadership could therefore properly disclose Title III information to OIG in connection with all three 

investigations under section 2517(1).
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

17

General and her assistants better manage those programs and operations, 5 U.S.C. 

app. § 4(a). OIG agents thus have responsibilities that are closely related to 

Department leadership’s duty to supervise and manage the Department’s law 

enforcement functions on a programmatic and policy basis, and are therefore 

sufficiently related to law enforcement to constitute “official duties” under 

section 2517(1). 

We recognize that, in at least two respects, OIG reviews of Department law 

enforcement operations have a more attenuated relationship to the actual conduct of 

those operations than policy and programmatic supervision conducted by 

Department leadership; but we do not think that either of these distinctions prevents 

the conduct of such reviews from constituting an “official dut[y]” under section 

2517(1). First, OIG provides information and recommendations that may inform

supervisory decisions made by Department leadership, but it does not—and

cannot—actually make operational decisions concerning the Department’s law 

enforcement activities. See Authority to Conduct Regulatory Investigations, 13 Op. 

O.L.C. at 62 (concluding that inspectors general may not conduct “investigations 

constituting an integral part of the programs involved”); 5 U.S.C. app. § 9(a) 

(prohibiting the Attorney General from transferring to OIG “program operating 

responsibilities”). Neither the statutory phrase “official duties,” however, nor our 

prior conclusion that this phrase encompasses duties that “relate to law 

enforcement,” Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 271, requires that 

such duties involve operational law enforcement responsibilities. Indeed, such a 

requirement would exclude activities that are essential to the effective conduct of 

core law enforcement functions. It is difficult to imagine how most law enforcement

duties, including the duty to set relevant policy and conduct programmatic 

supervision, could be carried out responsibly without the benefit of the fact-finding 

and evaluative work necessary to inform them. And it would make little sense to 

conclude that, for example, the Attorney General and her assistants are not engaged 

in “official duties” related to law enforcement, and thus cannot obtain relevant 

Title III information, when they conduct a review of a law enforcement program 

that relies on such information, but that the Attorney General is engaged in a law 

enforcement duty, and thus may obtain such access, when she ultimately issues 

direction or guidance about that program. We therefore think that the duty to review 

and investigate law enforcement programs, like the duty to supervise those 

programs on a programmatic or policy level, qualifies as an “official dut[y]” related 

to law enforcement under section 2517(1).

Second, in providing its recommendations and analysis to the Attorney General, 

OIG is insulated to some degree from the Attorney General’s direction and 

supervision. See 5 U.S.C. app. § 3(a) (providing that the Attorney General may not 

“prevent or prohibit the Inspector General from initiating, carrying out, or 

completing any audit or investigation”); id. § 8E(a) (qualifying this limitation with 

respect to “audits or investigations . . . which require access to [certain] sensitive 

information”). Moreover, unlike other Department components or officials that 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

18

conduct fact-finding investigations or make recommendations to Department 

leadership, OIG exercises authority conferred directly by Congress in the IG Act, 

rather than authority shared with or delegated by the Attorney General. Compare id.

§§ 4(a), 6(a) (granting various authorities to inspectors general) with 28 U.S.C. 

§ 509 (vesting in the Attorney General, with certain minor exceptions, “[a]ll 

functions of other officers of the [Department] and all functions of agencies and 

employees of the [Department]”) and id. § 510 (authorizing the Attorney General 

to “authoriz[e] the performance by any other officer, employee, or agency of the 

[Department] of any function of the Attorney General”). OIG thus falls in important 

respects outside the Department’s chain of command when it conducts 

investigations and develops recommendations.

But OIG’s relative independence from the Department’s leadership does not in 

our view undermine the value of its reviews or advice, or mean that its “official 

dut[y]” to undertake such reviews and provide such advice is unrelated to the 

ultimate supervisory law enforcement decisions made by Department leadership. To 

the contrary, Congress created OIG precisely because it believed that establishing 

an independent and objective entity to evaluate the Department’s programs and 

operations would enhance the quality of such evaluations. See H.R. Rep. No. 100-

771, at 8–9 (1988) (explaining that a lack of independence impaired the 

effectiveness of the Department’s internal audit and investigation components). We 

are reluctant to conclude that the relative independence that Congress determined 

would improve the value of OIG’s reviews at the same time renders them 

insufficiently “related to law enforcement” to support disclosure of the Title III 

information OIG needs to perform such reviews effectively.

Consequently, we believe that OIG investigations and reviews that concern, or 

are designed to develop recommendations about, the manner in which the 

Department prevents, investigates, or prosecutes crimes “serve criminal law 

investigation and enforcement objectives” and “relate to law enforcement,” as our 

Title III Intelligence Community opinion requires. 24 Op. O.L.C. at 265, 271 

(internal quotation marks omitted). As a result, we think that OIG agents can obtain 

Title III information directly from Department investigative and law enforcement 

officers, for use in such investigations and reviews, based on the OIG agents’ own

“official duties” to conduct such reviews for the benefit of Department leadership—

and not simply from Department leadership based on the leadership officials’ duty 

to supervise Department operations.

Finally, although we have concluded that the “official duties” of Department 

leadership officials and OIG agents for Title III purposes encompass many of their 

responsibilities, it does not follow that disclosing Title III materials in connection 

with an OIG audit, investigation, or review is “appropriate to the proper 

performance of the official duties” of Department leadership or OIG agents in every 

instance. Cf. OIG 2014 Memorandum at 11. In particular, reviews that are either 

unrelated to, or have only an attenuated connection with, the conduct of the 

Department’s law enforcement programs and operations do not, in our view, 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

19

constitute (or promise to assist with) “official duties” related to law enforcement.

For example, it is unlikely that an OIG review of one of the Department’s non-law 

enforcement activities, such as civil litigation, would be sufficiently related to the 

Department’s law enforcement programs and operations to justify disclosure under 

section 2517(1), unless that review were aimed at uncovering criminal misconduct.

Similarly, we doubt that a routine financial audit of a Department component, or a 

review of a component’s record-keeping practices, would justify disclosure of Title 

III information under section 2517(1) merely because that component engaged in 

law enforcement activities. Although sound finances and good record-keeping may

enable a law enforcement component to conduct its functions more effectively, such 

an audit or investigation would not be aimed at evaluating the conduct of law 

enforcement activities themselves, or uncovering criminal conduct by Department 

employees. Construing section 2517(1) to permit disclosure of Title III information 

in connection with reviews that are so tangentially related to law enforcement 

activities would reduce that provision to the kind of “highly elastic limitation on 

disclosure” among law enforcement and investigative officers that Congress did not 

intend. Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 265; cf. Rural Housing 

Alliance v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 498 F.2d 73, 81 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (rejecting a 

construction of the exemption for “investigatory files compiled for enforcement 

purposes” in the Freedom of Information Act, under which that exemption would 

encompass records from a compliance audit that might result in administrative or 

criminal sanctions, because that construction would cause the exemption to 

“swallow[] up the Act”).

In sum, we conclude that section 2517(1) permits Department investigative or 

law enforcement officers to disclose Title III information to OIG agents in 

connection with many, but not all, OIG investigations and reviews. Line-level 

Department officers may disclose Title III information to OIG agents to assist the 

disclosing officers in preventing, investigating, or prosecuting criminal conduct.

Any Department officer may disclose Title III information to OIG agents to assist 

OIG in its investigations of criminal misconduct by Department employees, 

contractors, or grantees, including administrative misconduct investigations that 

have a reasonable prospect of uncovering criminal violations. And because 

Department leadership officials have a duty to conduct policy and programmatic 

supervision of the Department’s law enforcement activities—and because OIG has 

a duty to conduct investigations and reviews that could assist Department leadership 

in carrying out that supervision—any Department officer may disclose Title III 

information to assist OIG in performing such investigations and reviews where they 

concern, or are designed to develop recommendations about, the manner in which 

the Department prevents, investigates, or prosecutes crimes. Section 2517(1) does 

not, however, permit OIG agents to obtain Title III information in connection with 

reviews that are either unrelated to, or have only an attenuated relationship with, the 

conduct of the Department’s law enforcement activities.
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

20

B.

We now turn to OIG’s eligibility to obtain grand jury materials. Federal Rule of 

Criminal Procedure 6(e) “codifies the traditional rule of grand jury secrecy,” which 

is designed to ensure “the proper functioning of our grand jury system” by 

encouraging prospective witnesses to “come forward” and “testify fully and 

frankly,” lessening the “risk that those about to be indicted w[ill] flee, or w[ill] try 

to influence individual grand jurors to vote against indictment,” and protecting the 

innocent from “be[ing] held up to public ridicule.” Sells, 463 U.S. at 424–25 

(quoting Douglas Oil Co. v. Petrol Stops Nw., 441 U.S. 211, 218–19 (1979)). In 

order to achieve these objectives, Rule 6(e) prohibits several specified classes of 

individuals, including “attorney[s] for the government,” from disclosing “a matter 

occurring before the grand jury.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(2)(B). This rule of secrecy, 

however, is not absolute: A court may authorize the disclosure of grand jury 

materials in certain circumstances, id. 6(e)(3)(E), and an attorney for the 

government may disclose information without court authorization pursuant to 

several exceptions enumerated in subsection (3) of Rule 6(e).

OIG contends that these exceptions authorize its attorneys to receive grand jury 

materials that are relevant to OIG investigations. Principally, OIG argues that 

Department attorneys may disclose grand jury information to OIG under the 

exception set forth in Rule 6(e)(3)(A)(i) (“exception (A)(i)”), which permits the 

disclosure of grand jury information to “an attorney for the government for use in 

performing that attorney’s duty.” See OIG 2015 E-mail; OIG 2014 Memorandum at 

9–10; OIG Supplemental Memorandum at 19–26. In addition, although OIG does 

not rely on the provision, we have considered whether OIG attorneys may obtain 

grand jury information under the exception set forth in Rule 6(e)(3)(A)(ii) 

(“exception (A)(ii)”), which authorizes disclosures to “any government personnel . . . that an attorney for the government considers necessary to assist in 

performing that attorney’s duty to enforce federal criminal law.” For the reasons set 

forth below, we conclude that exception (A)(i) does not authorize Department 

attorneys to disclose grand jury materials to OIG attorneys, but that exception (A)(ii) 

authorizes disclosures to OIG officials in a wide range of circumstances, including 

in connection with OIG reviews that a member of Department leadership concludes 

could assist her in supervising the Department’s criminal law enforcement programs 

and operations.

10

 

10 OIG also argues that it is entitled to disclosure of some grand jury materials under subsection 

6(e)(3)(D) (“exception (D)”), which authorizes an attorney for the government to disclose grand jury

material “involving foreign intelligence, counterintelligence . . . , or foreign intelligence information” to 

a range of officials, including “federal law enforcement . . . official[s],” in order to “assist the official 

receiving the information in the performance of that official’s duties.” See OIG Supplemental 

Memorandum at 26–45. We believe the applicability of exception (D) to OIG presents a difficult 

question. In light of our conclusion that exception (A)(ii) permits the Department leadership to provide 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

21

1.

We begin with exception (A)(i). It provides:

Disclosure of a grand-jury matter—other than the grand jury’s 

deliberations or any grand juror’s vote—may be made to . . . an 

attorney for the government for use in performing that attorney’s duty.

Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(i). A person may make a disclosure under this provision 

without obtaining authorization from the court that impaneled the grand jury or 

notifying the court of the disclosure. Cf. id. 6(e)(3)(B), (E).

OIG argues that exception (A)(i) authorizes Department attorneys to disclose 

grand jury information to OIG attorneys for use in conducting any OIG audit, 

investigation, or review. OIG observes that, in a prior memorandum, this Office 

concluded that attorneys from the Department’s Office of Professional 

Responsibility (“OPR”) could obtain grand jury information under exception (A)(i)

for use in investigating charges of misconduct by prosecutors or other Department 

employees who had assisted in grand jury investigations. See OIG Supplemental 

Memorandum at 20–22 (citing Memorandum for Michael Shaheen, Jr., Counsel, 

OPR, from Robert B. Shanks, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal 

Counsel, Re: Disclosure of Grand Jury Material to the Office of Professional 

Responsibility (Jan. 6, 1984) (“OPR Memorandum”)). OIG contends that because 

its attorneys, like OPR attorneys, are authorized to assist the Attorney General in 

supervising the Department, they qualify as “attorney[s] for the government” who 

may receive disclosures under exception (A)(i). See OIG 2015 E-mail. OIG further 

argues that its attorneys perform a “duty” closely analogous to OPR’s when they 

investigate allegations of misconduct by the Department’s law enforcement officers.

OIG claims that as a result, exception (A)(i) likewise permits its attorneys to receive 

grand jury information in connection with its investigations. See OIG Supplemental 

Memorandum at 22–24.

The starting point for OIG’s argument is United States v. Sells Engineering. In 

that case, the Supreme Court considered whether exception (A)(i) authorizes the 

Department’s Civil Division to obtain grand jury materials for use in preparing and 

litigating civil lawsuits. See 463 U.S. at 420. The Court concluded first that Civil 

Division attorneys, like “virtually every attorney in the Department of Justice,” were 

“within the class of ‘attorneys for the government’ to whom (A)(i) allows disclosure 

 

OIG with access to grand jury material in a wide range of circumstances, see infra Part II.B.2, we decline 

to address the scope of exception (D) here. Rule 6(e)(3) also includes exceptions to Rule 6(e)’s secrecy 

requirements for (1) certain disclosures relating to banking matters and civil forfeiture authorized by 18 

U.S.C. § 3322, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(iii); (2) disclosures to another federal grand jury, see id.

6(e)(3)(C)); and (3) disclosures authorized by a court under certain conditions, see id. 6(e)(3)(E). We

likewise do not address the application of those exceptions in this opinion.
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

22

without a court order.” Id. at 426, 427–28. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 

the Court explained, define “attorneys for the government” to include “‘authorized 

assistants of the Attorney General’”; and the Attorney General may direct almost 

“any attorney employed by the Department”—including Civil Division attorneys—

“to conduct ‘any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal, including grand jury 

proceedings.’” Id. at 428 (quoting Fed. R. Crim. P. 54(c) (1983); 28 U.S.C. 

§ 515(a)).11 It was therefore “immaterial,” in the Court’s view, that “certain 

attorneys happen[ed] to be assigned to a unit called the Civil Division, or that their 

usual duties involve[d] only civil cases.” Id. Because such attorneys, 

notwithstanding such an assignment, could be detailed or assigned to conduct 

“criminal grand jury investigation[s],” they counted as “attorneys for the 

government” under the Rules. Id.

Nonetheless, the Court held that the use of grand jury information for civil 

purposes—even by an “attorney for the government” exercising her official 

duties—did not constitute “use in the performance of such attorney’s duty” within 

the meaning of exception (A)(i).12 In the Court’s view, Congress did not intend 

exception (A)(i) to mean “that any Justice Department attorney is free to rummage 

through the records of any grand jury in the country, simply by right of office,” id., 

or to authorize access to grand jury material to serve “the general and multifarious 

purposes of the Department of Justice,” id. at 429. The Court based its conclusion 

primarily on the purpose behind exception (A)(i). It explained that Rule 6(e) permits 

government attorneys to obtain otherwise secret grand jury materials only “because 

both the grand jury’s functions and their own prosecutorial duties require it.” Id. 

(emphasis in original); see id. at 428–29 (quoting Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e) advisory 

committee’s note (1944)). A prosecutor working on a criminal matter “needs to 

know what transpires before the grand jury,” in order to “bring[] matters to the 

attention of the grand jury,” “advise[] the lay jury on the applicable law,” and 

“determine whether it is in the interests of justice to proceed with prosecution.” Id.

at 430. A civil attorney’s “need for access,” in contrast, “is ordinarily nothing more 

than a matter of saving [the] time and expense” of civil discovery. Id. at 431. As a 

result, “disclosure for civil use [is] unjustified by the considerations supporting 

prosecutorial access.” Id. Moreover, the Court continued, granting attorneys the 

right to obtain grand jury materials for use in civil litigation would “threaten[] to do 

affirmative mischief.” Id. Such a broad right of access might discourage witnesses

from testifying before the grand jury “for fear that [they] will get [themselves] into 

trouble in some other forum,” “tempt[]” prosecutors to “manipulate the grand jury’s 

powerful investigative tools . . . to elicit evidence for use in a civil case,” and 

 11 Rule 54(c) was transferred to Rule 1(b)(1) when the Rules were amended in 2002.

12 The language of this provision has been modified slightly since Sells. Compare Fed. R. Crim. P. 

6(e)(3)(A)(i) (1979) (“an attorney for the government for use in the performance of such attorney’s duty”) 

with Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(i) (2015) (“an attorney for the government for use in performing that 

attorney’s duty”). We believe this change is immaterial for purposes of this opinion.
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

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“subvert the limitations applied outside the grand jury context on the Government’s 

powers of discovery and investigation.” Id. at 432–33.

Significantly, the Court made clear that it did “not mean to suggest that (A)(i) 

access to grand jury materials islimited to those prosecutors who actually did appear 

before the grand jury.” Id. at 429 n.11 (emphasis in original). Rather, the Court 

noted that “anyone working on a given prosecution would clearly be eligible under 

[the Federal Rules] to enter the grand jury room,” even if such a person did not do 

so. Id. (emphasis in original). Accordingly, the Court found that the intent of the 

rule was to authorize “every attorney (including a supervisor) who is working on a 

prosecution [to] have access to grand jury materials, at least while he is conducting 

criminal matters,” in order “to facilitate effective working of the prosecution team.”

Id. (emphasis omitted).

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Sells, OPR asked this Office

whether its attorneys could continue to obtain access to grand jury materials under 

exception (A)(i) when “investigating charges that prosecutors or Department 

employees assisting grand jury investigations ha[d] engaged in misconduct.” OPR 

Memorandum at 1. In an unpublished memorandum that forms the basis for OIG’s 

argument here, we advised that OPR attorneys could “probably” do so. Id. at 2. We 

acknowledged that “the broad language in Sells, on its face, would appear to prohibit 

automatic disclosure” to OPR attorneys, because they “would usually be using the 

materials for civil, not criminal, purposes”—i.e., in connection with administrative 

misconduct proceedings—and because “they are not the ‘attorneys who conduct the 

criminal matters to which the materials pertain.’” Id. at 4 (quoting Sells, 463 U.S. at 

427). Nonetheless, we observed that two “strong arguments [could] be made” in 

support of OPR’s eligibility for disclosure under exception (A)(i). Id.

First, we noted that permitting the automatic disclosure of grand jury materials 

to OPR attorneys would not “raise[] the same type of policy concerns that were 

relied upon by the Sells Court.” Id. at 6. The Civil Division attorneys in Sells, we 

explained, had sought grand jury materials “for possible use in civil actions against 

the targets of the grand jury inquiry,” while OPR attorneys sought those materials 

“to oversee the conduct of the government attorneys and investigators assisting the 

grand jury.” Id. at 4–5. Thus, unlike in Sells, “only the conduct of government 

prosecutors,” and not the conduct of the targets of the grand jury inquiry, “would be 

subject to scrutiny.” Id. at 5. As a result, disclosing grand jury materials to OPR 

attorneys would neither “hinder[]” the “willingness of witnesses to testify” nor 

“create an incentive for criminal attorneys to abuse the grand jury process in order 

to pursue civil discovery.” Id.

Second, we believed that disclosures to OPR attorneys would “fall generally 

within the supervisor exception” articulated in Sells. Id. at 7. We noted that the Sells

Court had recognized that grand jury materials could be “disclosed to some persons 

who may not technically be considered ‘prosecutors,’ such as Department 

‘supervisors’ and members of the ‘prosecution team,’ but who nevertheless are 

indispensable to an effective criminal law enforcement effort.” Id. at 6 (citation 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

24

omitted) (quoting Sells, 463 U.S. at 429 n.11). We thought this exception “would 

clearly cover certain exchanges [of grand jury information]” that were “analogous” 

to disclosures to OPR. Id. In particular, we thought there was “no question” that 

prosecutors could “ask ethics counselors to accompany them into the grand jury 

room to give direct counsel when problems [arose],” or that prosecutors could 

“disclose grand jury materials to their superiors,” as well as to “ethics attorneys” 

advising those supervisors, in order “to seek their instructions on ethical 

responsibilities.” Id. at 7. We therefore thought it probable, although “not free from 

doubt,” that, by the same logic, Department attorneys could obtain grand jury 

materials “to evaluate in the course of a separate administrative investigation the 

propriety of prior conduct.” Id. We reasoned that, “[t]o perform properly their 

oversight role, supervisors not only must be able to review grand jury materials for 

purposes of instructing subordinates on future activities, but also must be able to 

evaluate that conduct once a course of action has been set.” Id. “A supervisor’s 

access to grand jury materials,” we explained, “should not be terminated artificially 

once his subordinates have acted, but should properly include post mortem review 

of his staff’s activities.” Id. at 7–8. We further noted that OPR attorneys are, by 

regulation, “delegee[s] of the Attorney General for purposes of overseeing and 

advising with respect to the ethical conduct of department attorneys.” Id. at 8 (citing 

28 C.F.R. § 0.39a (1983)). Accordingly, we concluded that it was appropriate for 

OPR attorneys to review grand jury materials in order to “make recommendations 

to the Attorney General or other supervisors regarding conduct in particular cases.”

Id.13

OIG argues that it is eligible to receive grand jury materials under exception 

(A)(i) for much the same reason as OPR attorneys. OIG asserts that its attorneys 

qualify as “attorney[s] for the government” because they are charged with 

“assisting the [Attorney General] in [her] capacity of overseeing the operations of 

the Department.” OIG 2015 E-mail. And OIG argues that its investigations and 

reviews are comparable to the work performed by OPR attorneys, and thus qualify 

as “dut[ies]” for which OIG may receive grand jury information, because OIG, 

like OPR, performs those investigations to “oversee[] and advis[e] with respect to 

the ethical conduct” of Department personnel, and to assist members of the 

Department’s leadership in “evaluat[ing] . . . the propriety of prior conduct” and 

improving the Department’s law enforcement policies and programs. OPR 

Memorandum at 7–8; see OIG Supplemental Memorandum at 22–24.

We think that OIG is correct that its duties are similar to OPR’s in important 

respects; indeed, for the reasons described in Part II.B.2 below, we believe that OIG 

 13 Recognizing, however, that the broad language in Sells could be read to prohibit automatic 

disclosure of grand jury materials to OPR attorneys, we suggested “as a prudential matter” that OPR seek 

a court order sanctioning disclosure under exception (A)(i) in the first few cases in which it reviewed 

grand jury materials so that it might “obtain some clear guidance from the courts on whether the 

automatic exemption may be employed.” OPR Memorandum at 9.
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

25

personnel may obtain grand jury information under exception (A)(ii) in part because 

of their responsibility to assist Department leadership in supervising the 

Department’s law enforcement functions. See infra pp. 33–34. But we disagree that 

OIG attorneys qualify as “attorney[s] for the government” within the meaning of 

the Federal Rules. As we explain below—and as both Sells and numerous courts of 

appeals have confirmed—an “attorney for the government” under the Rules must 

not merely assist the Attorney General, but must (at a minimum) be capable of 

conducting criminal proceedings on behalf of the government. Because the IG Act 

prohibits OIG personnel from engaging in such activities, OIG attorneys cannot 

qualify for disclosure under exception (A)(i).

The Rules define an “attorney for the government” as:

(A) the Attorney General or an authorized assistant; 

(B) a United States attorney or an authorized assistant; 

(C) when applicable to cases arising under Guam law, the Guam 

Attorney General or other person whom Guam law authorizes to act 

in the matter; and 

(D) any other attorney authorized by law to conduct proceedings 

under these rules as a prosecutor.

Fed. R. Crim. P. 1(b)(1). Most of the categories listed in this definition clearly 

consist of attorneys who are authorized to conduct criminal proceedings on behalf 

of the government. The Attorney General is authorized to “conduct any kind of legal 

proceeding, civil or criminal, including grand jury proceedings,” 28 U.S.C. 

§ 515(a); United States Attorneys are charged with “prosecut[ing] . . . all offenses 

against the United States,” id. § 547(1); attorneys for the government acting in 

Guam criminal cases must be “authorize[d] to act in th[os]e matter[s]” under Guam 

law; and “other attorney[s]” must be “authorized by law to conduct proceedings 

under [the Rules] as a prosecutor.” Only the “authorized assistant[s]” to the Attorney 

General and United States Attorneys described in subparagraphs (A) and (B) are not 

in plain terms limited to attorneys who are authorized to represent the government 

in criminal proceedings. In isolation, the phrase “authorized assistant” might be read 

to encompass persons who “assist[]” the Attorney General or a United States 

Attorney in ways other than by conducting prosecutions (such as by conducting the 

kinds of investigations of misconduct or law enforcement programs undertaken by 

OIG). Read in context, however, we think that the term “authorized assistant” in 

subparagraphs (A) and (B) refers, like the other categories in Rule 1(b)(1), to 

prosecutors or other attorneys with authority to conduct criminal proceedings on the 

government’s behalf. This is so for at least three reasons.

First, the text of Rule 1(b)(1) supports this reading. The word “authorized” in 

“authorized assistant” must be read in light of the meaning it has in the other parts 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

26

of the same provision. As noted, subsection (C) refers to persons “whom Guam law 

authorizes to act in [a] [criminal] matter,” and subsection (D) refers to other 

attorneys “authorized by law to conduct proceedings under these rules as a 

prosecutor” (emphases added). Because “similar language contained within the 

same section of a statute must be accorded a consistent meaning,” Nat’l Credit 

Union Admin. v. First Nat’l Bank & Trust Co., 522 U.S. 479, 501 (1998), it is 

reasonable to presume that Congress used the term “authorized” in a similar sense 

in subsections (A) and (B), to refer to official authorization to conduct proceedings 

under the Rules as a prosecutor, or otherwise to “act” in a criminal proceeding in an 

official capacity. As noted above, moreover, the other categories of government 

attorneys listed in Rule 1(b)(1) are clearly authorized to conduct criminal 

proceedings. In that context, the term “authorized assistant” is best read to refer as 

well to attorneys who are authorized to conduct criminal proceedings. See United 

States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 294 (2008) (noting that “a word is given more 

precise content by the neighboring words with which it is associated”). Additionally, 

the catchall category set forth in subsection (D) refers to “any other attorney 

authorized by law to conduct proceedings under these rules as a prosecutor” 

(emphasis added). That formulation reinforces our conclusion that the preceding 

categories in the Rule consist of attorneys authorized by law to conduct proceedings 

under the rules as a prosecutor. See Paroline v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 1710, 1721 

(2014) (“Here, [18 U.S.C.] § 2259(b)(3)(F) defines a broad, final category of ‘other 

losses suffered . . . as a proximate result of the offense.’ That category is most 

naturally understood as a summary of the type of losses covered—i.e., losses 

suffered as a proximate result of the offense.” (ellipsis in original)).

Second, consistent with this reading, Sells and many lower court decisions have 

held or assumed that an “authorized assistant” to the Attorney General must be an 

attorney who is, or at least may be, authorized to conduct criminal proceedings on 

the government’s behalf. As noted, Sells concluded that Civil Division attorneys

qualify as “authorized assistant[s] of the Attorney General” because the Attorney 

General may assign them to “conduct a criminal grand jury investigation” or other 

criminal matters. Sells, 463 U.S. at 428 (citing 28 U.S.C. §§ 515(a), 518(b)). The 

Attorney General’s authority to reassign attorneys in this way would be pertinent 

only if the Court thought that an “authorized assistant” had to be capable of 

conducting criminal matters on the government’s behalf. Courts of appeals have 

interpreted the phrase even more strictly. The Sixth Circuit, for instance, has held 

that “an ‘authorized assistant of the Attorney General’ is one whose superiors have 

assigned him or her to work in some official capacity on the criminal proceeding.”

United States v. Forman, 71 F.3d 1214, 1220 (6th Cir. 1995) (emphasis omitted).

Other courts of appeals have reached similar conclusions. See Sells, 463 U.S. at 429 

n.12 (citing courts of appeals that had “held or assumed that” even a Criminal 

Division attorney could qualify as an “‘authorized assistant of the Attorney 

General’” only if she had actually been “authorized to conduct grand jury 

proceedings” (emphasis in original)); United States v. Fort, 472 F.3d 1106, 1111 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

27

(9th Cir. 2007) (“Rule 1(b)(1) defines restrictively the term ‘attorney for the 

government’ to mean (as relevant here) a federal prosecutor.”); United States v. 

Balistrieri, 779 F.2d 1191, 1207 (7th Cir. 1985) (holding that attorneys employed 

by the Department’s Criminal Division were “authorized assistants of the Attorney 

General” and thus “attorneys for the government” because they “were assigned to 

assist the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in investigating and prosecuting” a criminal case). There is some apparent tension between 

the conclusion in Sells that any attorney who could be authorized to conduct 

criminal proceedings qualifies as an “attorney for the government,” see 463 U.S. 

at 428, and the conclusions of other courts that an actual authorization is required, 

see, e.g., Forman, 71 F.3d at 1220. But we need not attempt to resolve this tension 

here, because at a minimum, all courts agree that an attorney who is incapable of 

being authorized to conduct criminal proceedings on the government’s behalf is not 

an “authorized assistant” for purposes of the Federal Rules.

Third, numerous provisions of the Federal Rules make clear that an “attorney for 

the government,” including an authorized assistant to the Attorney General, refers 

to an attorney capable of representing the government in criminal proceedings—a 

meaning that makes sense given the Rules’ purpose of establishing the “procedure” 

governing “all criminal proceedings in the United States [courts].” Fed. R. Crim. P. 

1(a)(1); see Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 345 (1997) (resolving the 

meaning of a statutory term by considering “[t]he broader context provided by other 

sections of the statute”). More than 50 provisions of the Rules use the term “attorney 

for the government,” and all are consistent with this understanding. For example, 

Rule 11(c) provides that “[a]n attorney for the government and the defendant’s 

attorney, or the defendant when proceeding pro se, may discuss and reach a plea 

agreement.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1). Rule 12.1 provides that “[a]n attorney for the 

government may request in writing that the defendant notify an attorney for the 

government of any intended alibi defense,” id. 12.1(a)(1), and that, following such 

a request, “the defendant must serve written notice on an attorney for the 

government of any intended alibi defense,” id. 12.1(a)(2). Rule 14 provides that 

“[b]efore ruling on a defendant’s motion to sever [his trial from a codefendant’s], 

the court may order an attorney for the government to deliver to the court for in 

camera inspection any defendant’s statement that the government intends to use as 

evidence.” Id. 14(b). And Rule 26.2 provides that “[a]fter a witness other than the 

defendant has testified on direct examination, the court, on motion of a party who 

did not call the witness, must order an attorney for the government or the defendant 

and the defendant’s attorney to produce . . . any statement of the witness that is in 

their possession and that relates to the subject matter of the witness’s testimony.”

Id. 26.2(a). A person who lacks authority to appear in a criminal matter on behalf of 

the government could not perform these or many other functions assigned to 

“attorney[s] for the government” by the Federal Rules.

OIG attorneys cannot qualify as “authorized assistant[s],” or any other type of 

“attorney for the government,” under this standard. As an initial matter, nothing in the 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

28

IG Act authorizes OIG attorneys to conduct criminal proceedings. See 5 U.S.C. app. 

§§ 4(a), 6(a), 8E(b) (listing OIG’s duties and authorities). Ordinarily, 28 U.S.C. § 515 

and related statutes permit the Attorney General to delegate to any “officer of the 

Department of Justice,” or to any “attorney specially appointed by the Attorney 

General,” the authority to conduct criminal proceedings on the government’s behalf.

28 U.S.C. § 515(a); see also id. §§ 518(b), 543(a). But section 9(a) of the IG Act 

provides that the Attorney General may transfer “functions, powers, [and] duties” to 

OIG only if those functions are “properly related to the functions of [OIG],” 

transferring them would “further the purposes of th[e] Act,” and the functions do not 

constitute “program operating responsibilities.” 5 U.S.C. app. § 9(a), (a)(2); see also 

Authority to Conduct Regulatory Investigations, 13 Op. O.L.C. at 61 (stating that the 

IG Act prohibits inspectors general from “conduct[ing] investigations constituting an 

integral part of the programs involved” (internal quotation marks omitted)). The duty 

to conduct grand jury or other criminal proceedings on behalf of the United States is 

unrelated to OIG’s statutory functions of investigation, auditing, and oversight. See 

5 U.S.C. app. § 4(a). Transferring criminal litigating responsibilities to OIG would 

undermine its independence—preservation of which is one of the principal concerns 

of the Act—by making its attorneys “responsible official[s]” who “set and implement 

[Department] policy” at the same time as they oversee and critique it. Authority to 

Conduct Regulatory Investigations, 13 Op. O.L.C. at 61. And the conduct of criminal 

litigation is one of the Department’s central program operating responsibilities. See 

28 U.S.C. §§ 515(a), 516, 519. The plain language of section 9(a) therefore bars the 

Attorney General from assigning this responsibility to OIG.

The IG Act’s legislative history further supports this reading of section 9(a).

When Congress initially enacted the IG Act in 1978, the House Report explained 

that “Inspector[s] General would not conduct prosecutions or decide whether 

prosecutions should or should not be conducted.” H.R. Rep. No. 95-584, at 13 

(1977). And when Congress extended the IG Act to the Department in 1988, the 

House Report responded to concerns that OIG’s creation would interfere with the 

Department’s law enforcement functions: “[P]rosecution of suspected violations of 

Federal law and the conduct of litigation are parts of the basic mission or program 

functions of the Department of Justice,” the Report explained, “[and] the [IG] [A]ct 

does not authorize inspectors general to engage in program functions.” H.R. Rep. 

No. 100-771, at 9. “[I]n fact,” the Report continued, “[section 9(a)] specifically 

prohibits the assignment of such responsibilities to an inspector general.” Id. at 9 & 

n.48. The Conference Report accompanying the 1988 amendments likewise 

indicated that OIG personnel would not be permitted to engage in prosecutorial 

functions, noting that “[t]he conferees do not intend that the IG should render 

judgments on the exercise of prosecutorial or other litigative discretion in a 

particular case or controversy.” H.R. Rep. No. 100-1020, at 25 (Conf. Rep.).

Because section 9(a) prohibits the Attorney General from transferring to OIG the 

authority to conduct criminal proceedings, the Attorney General may not assign 

OIG that authority pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515 or similar general delegation 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

29

statutes. As we have noted, different statutes that regulate the same subject matter 

must be read in pari materia and given full effect to the extent possible. See Morton, 

417 U.S. at 551. If a general delegation statute such as 28 U.S.C. § 515 were 

construed to permit assignments to OIG that section 9(a) prohibits, then section 9(a) 

would be effectively inapplicable to the Department and many agencies subject to 

the IG Act, because numerous statutes grant the heads of agencies equally broad or 

broader authority to delegate their statutory functions to subordinate officers. See, 

e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 510 (providing that the Attorney General may authorize “any other 

officer” of the Department to perform “any function of the Attorney General”

(emphases added)); 6 U.S.C. § 112(b)(1) (granting similar authority to the Secretary 

of Homeland Security); 20 U.S.C. § 3472 (Secretary of Education); 31 U.S.C. 

§ 321(b)(2) (Secretary of the Treasury). It is in our view implausible that Congress 

intended section 9(a) to have such a limited effect, particularly in light of the 

legislative history expressing Congress’s belief that this provision would in fact 

prohibit OIG from engaging in prosecution or litigation. See H.R. Rep. No. 100-

1020, at 25 (Conf. Rep.); H.R. Rep. No. 100-771, at 9; H.R. Rep. No. 95-584, at 13.

We therefore think that, given the absence of any indication of congressional intent 

to the contrary, section 9(a)—a specific provision limiting the transfer of functions 

to inspectors general—is best construed as an exception to general delegation 

provisions, like 28 U.S.C. § 515(a), that broadly authorize the assignment of the 

Department’s functions to any subordinate officer or attorney. See infra p. 49

(explaining that if “a general permission or prohibition is contradicted by a specific 

prohibition or permission,” then “the specific provision is construed as an exception 

to the general one,” absent strong “textual indications that point in the other 

direction” (quoting RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, 132 S. Ct. 

2065, 2071–72 (2012))).

As a result, while the analysis in our OPR memorandum might inform the 

question whether OIG investigations and reviews qualify as “dut[ies]” justifying 

disclosure of grand jury materials under exception (A)(i), OIG attorneys are unlike 

OPR attorneys in at least one critical respect. Like “virtually every attorney in the 

Department of Justice,” OPR attorneys may in principle be delegated the Attorney 

General’s authority to conduct criminal proceedings for the Department. Sells, 463 

U.S. at 426; see id. at 428; OPR Memorandum at 8 (noting that OPR attorneys are 

“delegee[s] of the Attorney General”). But OIG attorneys, as we have discussed, are 

barred from being assigned this authority under the IG Act. Consequently, although 

OIG personnel may seek to use grand jury materials in a manner that parallels the 

use discussed in our OPR Memorandum, they do not fall within the category of 

persons—attorneys for the government—who may obtain disclosure under 

exception (A)(i).14

 

14 OIG contends that multiple district court decisions have determined that OIG attorneys qualify for 

disclosure under exception (A)(i), and questions whether this Office may render a legal opinion 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

30

2.

Because exception (A)(i) does not authorize the disclosure of grand jury 

materials to OIG, we have also considered whether a separate exception would 

authorize that disclosure. Exception (A)(ii) provides:

Disclosure of a grand-jury matter—other than the grand jury’s 

deliberations or any grand juror’s vote—may be made to . . . any 

government personnel—including those of a state, state subdivision, 

Indian tribe, or foreign government—that an attorney for the 

government considers necessary to assist in performing that attorney’s 

duty to enforce federal criminal law.

Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(ii). Like disclosure under exception (A)(i), disclosure 

under this exception may be made without prior judicial approval. However, unlike 

 

disagreeing with those decisions. See OIG 2014 Memorandum at 15 & att. The decisions OIG cites are 

one-page memorandum orders, issued by a single district judge, that authorized disclosure to OIG 

attorneys under exception (A)(i). The relevant parts of the orders state, in their entirety, that because a 

particular OIG investigation of “alleged misconduct before the grand jury” was “supervisory in nature 

with respect to ethical conduct of Department employees,” “disclosure of grand jury materials to the OIG 

constitutes disclosure to ‘an attorney for the government for use in the performance of such attorney’s 

duty’” under exception (A)(i). In re Matters Occurring Before the Grand Jury Impaneled July 16, 1996, 

Misc. No. 39 (W.D. Okla. June 4, 1998) (Russell, C.J.) (order) (quoting Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(i)); 

id. (Dec. 8, 1998) (same); see id. (Nov. 15, 1999) (“Because in taking such actions, these Department 

personnel would be engaged in a supervisory function, disclosure of grand jury materials to them 

constitutes disclosure to ‘an attorney for the government for use in the performance of such attorney’s 

duty.’”). Neither these orders, nor the underlying Department filings that sought disclosure, discussed or 

analyzed the meaning of the terms “attorney for the government” or “authorized assistant.” As the 

Supreme Court has explained, a “‘decision of a federal district court judge is not binding precedent in 

either a different judicial district, the same judicial district, or even upon the same judge in a different

case.’” Camreta v. Greene, 131 S. Ct. 2020, 2033 n.7 (2011) (quoting 18 J. Moore et al., Moore’s Federal 

Practice § 134.02[1][d] (3d ed. 2011)). Nor is a district court decision binding on the Executive Branch 

in activities unrelated to the case in which the court’s decision was rendered. See In re Exec. Office of 

the President, 215 F.3d 20, 24–25 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (per curiam). Consistent with this rule, the Office has 

previously disagreed with district court decisions after independently analyzing the questions presented 

and reaching contrary conclusions, including where the court espoused a view previously advanced by 

the Department. See, e.g., Whether Proposals by Illinois and New York to Use the Internet and Out-ofState Transaction Processors to Sell Lottery Tickets to In-State Adults Violate the Wire Act, 35 Op. 

O.L.C. __, at *3–4 (Sept. 20, 2011) (available at http://www.justice.gov/olc/opinions.htm) (disagreeing 

with the decisions of courts that had adopted a position previously advanced by the Criminal Division); 

Applicability of the Antideficiency Act to a Violation of a Condition or Internal Cap Within an 

Appropriation, 25 Op. O.L.C. 33, 52 (2001) (disagreeing with the “unexplained decision” of a district 

court that appeared to interpret the Antideficiency Act in a manner “inconsistent with the Antideficiency 

Act’s legislative history and evolution and with the rest of the (limited) caselaw”); Authority of the 

President to Remove the Staff Director of the Civil Rights Commission and Appoint an Acting Staff 

Director, 25 Op. O.L.C. 103, 105 (2001) (disagreeing with a district court decision subsequently vacated 

as moot). For the reasons offered above, we respectfully disagree with the district court’s conclusion that 

OIG attorneys may qualify for disclosure under exception (A)(i) solely because they perform supervisory 

functions.
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

31

in the case of disclosures under exception (A)(i), the Rules provide that an attorney 

for the government must “promptly provide the court that impaneled the grand jury 

with the names of all persons to whom a disclosure has been made” under exception 

(A)(ii), and “certify that the attorney has advised those persons of their obligation 

of secrecy under this rule.” Id. 6(e)(3)(B). And a person to whom information is 

disclosed under this exception “may use that information only to assist an attorney 

for the government in performing that attorney’s duty to enforce federal criminal 

law.” Id.

OIG employees clearly qualify as “government personnel” who may receive 

disclosures under this exception. The language of that phrase is broad—particularly 

when considered in light of the Rule’s explanation that it extends to personnel of a 

“state, state subdivision, Indian tribe, or foreign government”—and comfortably 

encompasses OIG employees. Id. 6(e)(3)(A)(ii). In addition, we have previously 

observed that the use of the permissive phrase “considers necessary” in exception 

(A)(ii) suggests that “Congress intended federal prosecutors to have broad leeway 

in deciding what government personnel should have access to grand jury materials 

for purposes of facilitating enforcement functions.” Disclosure of Grand Jury 

Matters to the President and Other Officials, 17 Op. O.L.C. 59, 62 (1993) 

(“Disclosure to the President”).15 Consistent with this broad understanding of the 

term, we have advised that exception (A)(ii) permits disclosures to law enforcement 

officers, members of the intelligence community, and senior Administration 

officials, among others. See Rule 6(e) Intelligence Community, 21 Op. O.L.C. at 

161; Disclosure to the President, 17 Op. O.L.C. at 61. See generally Sells, 463 U.S. 

at 436 (explaining that exception (A)(ii) was prompted by the need to make 

disclosures to individuals such as “accountants” and “handwriting experts”); Fed R. 

Crim. P. 6 advisory committee’s note (1977 Amendments) (“The phrase ‘other 

government personnel’ includes, but is not limited to, employees of administrative 

agencies and government departments.”). OIG employees are likewise “government 

personnel” who may receive disclosures under exception (A)(ii).

In addition, a wide variety of Department attorneys qualify as “attorney[s] for 

the government” who may authorize disclosures under this exception. As we have 

discussed, that term includes the Attorney General, United States Attorneys, their 

“authorized assistant[s],” and “any other attorney authorized by law to conduct 

proceedings under these rules as a prosecutor”—and thus extends to any Department 

attorney who is (and perhaps any Department attorney who may be) authorized to 

 

15 Consistent with our prior opinions, we presume that Congress intended “necessary” in this context 

to mean useful or conducive, rather than strictly required. See Disclosure to the President, 17 Op. O.L.C. 

at 61 (stating that exception (A)(ii) permits disclosure “for purposes of obtaining . . . assistance”); Rule 

6(e) Intelligence Community, 21 Op. O.L.C. at 161 (similar); cf., e.g., McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 

(4 Wheat.) 316, 413, 415 (1819) (construing the word “necessary” in the Necessary and Proper Clause 

to mean “convenient,” “useful,” or “conducive”); Cellular Telecomms. & Internet Ass’n v. FCC, 330 

F.3d 502, 504 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (deferring to agency’s interpretation of “necessary” in telecommunications statute as referring to “a strong connection” between means and ends).
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

32

conduct criminal proceedings on behalf of the federal government. Fed. R. Crim. P. 

1(b)(1); see supra pp. 25–27.

The scope of permissible disclosure to OIG officials under exception (A)(ii) thus 

turns on the circumstances in which a Department attorney—including a member 

of Department leadership—may reasonably “consider[]” an OIG official “necessary 

to assist in performing that attorney’s duty to enforce federal criminal law.” Fed. R. 

Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(ii). This Office has previously noted several relatively 

straightforward ways in which this language limits the permissible scope of 

disclosures. To begin with, consistent with the plain language of this provision, a 

Department attorney may make a disclosure only for the purpose of obtaining 

assistance in performing her duty to enforce “federal criminal law.” Id. (emphasis 

added). Thus, an attorney may not authorize disclosures under exception (A)(ii) to 

assist in the performance of her civil or administrative duties, or to senior White 

House policymakers for purposes of “general policymaking.” Disclosure to the 

President, 17 Op. O.L.C. at 61–62, 64; see Sells, 463 U.S. at 427. We have also 

observed that, because disclosures under exception (A)(ii) may be made only to a 

person that a Department attorney “considers necessary to assist in performing that

attorney’s duty,” Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(ii) (emphasis added), an attorney may 

not make disclosures to assist in the performance of duties she herself does not hold.

See Rule 6(e) Intelligence Community, 21 Op. O.L.C. at 171. In addition, we have 

advised that the same phrase requires that any disclosure be made “in accordance 

with an actual determination made by an attorney.” Memorandum for Philip B. 

Heymann, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, and William P. Tyson, 

Acting Director, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, from John M. 

Harmon, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: Computerized 

Preservation and Use of Grand Jury Material at 4 (May 2, 1980). Hence, while an 

attorney has “broad leeway” in judging what disclosures are proper, Disclosure to 

the President, 17 Op. O.L.C. at 62 (citing S. Rep. No. 95-354, at 8 (1977)), she must 

always exercise her independent judgment before authorizing the disclosure of 

grand jury information to a particular recipient. Thus, for example, we concluded 

that an attorney could not place grand jury materials on a computerized database 

that law enforcement officers could use for purposes of which the attorney was 

unaware. See Memorandum for Roger B. Clegg, Acting Assistant Attorney General, 

Office of Legal Policy, and John Mintz, Assistant Director and Legal Counsel, FBI, 

from Robert B. Shanks, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal 

Counsel, Re: Authority of FBI Agents to Exchange Grand Jury Material Pursuant 

to Rule 6(e)(3)(A)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (Feb. 14, 1984)

(“Shanks Memorandum”).

Within these limitations, we believe exception (A)(ii) permits Department 

attorneys to authorize the disclosure of grand jury information to OIG both to assist 

with individual law enforcement actions and, where the disclosures are authorized 

by members of the Department leadership, to assist in the direction and supervision 

of the Department’s law enforcement programs and operations. First, because an 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

33

attorney’s “duty to enforce federal criminal law” plainly includes his duty to 

prosecute criminal offenses, exception (A)(ii) permits Department attorneys to 

authorize disclosure of grand jury materials to OIG in connection with OIG 

investigations and reviews those attorneys believe could assist them with ongoing 

or potential prosecutions. Exception (A)(ii) was drafted specifically in order to 

enable prosecutors to make disclosures to investigators who could develop the basis 

for and aid in prosecutions. See Sells, 463 U.S. at 436 (stating that exception (A)(ii) 

was enacted “because Justice Department attorneys found that they often need 

active assistance from . . . investigators from the [FBI], IRS, and other law 

enforcement agencies”); Fed. R. Crim. P. 6 advisory committee’s note (1977 

Enactment) (stating that “[o]ften the prosecutors need the assistance of the agents 

in evaluating evidence” or conducting “further investigation”). As we have 

discussed, OIG agents have a number of investigative duties, and are required to 

“report expeditiously to the Attorney General whenever the Inspector General has 

reasonable grounds to believe there has been a violation of Federal criminal law.”

5 U.S.C. app. § 4(d); see Investigative Officers, 14 Op. O.L.C. at 109. Hence, a 

Department attorney may authorize disclosure of information to OIG in connection 

with an OIG investigation that the attorney concludes will be likely to aid in an 

ongoing or potential prosecution in which the attorney is involved.

Second, we think that exception (A)(ii) permits a Department leadership official to 

authorize disclosure of grand jury information to OIG in connection with OIG 

investigations or reviews that the official believes could assist her in carrying out her 

duty to conduct programmatic or policy supervision of the Department’s criminal law 

enforcement activities. As we discussed in analyzing the scope of permissible 

disclosure under Title III, programmatic and policy supervision can affect the 

prevention, investigation, or prosecution of criminal conduct as directly as individual 

trial decisions, see Van de Kamp, 555 U.S. at 346, and constitute a central means by 

which the Attorney General and her assistants direct and control the Department’s law 

enforcement and prosecutorial functions. See supra pp. 14–15. Such activities are thus 

part of Department leadership’s “duty to enforce federal criminal law” under the plain 

language of that phrase. Further, it would be reasonable for a member of Department 

leadership to “consider[]” many OIG reviews “necessary to assist” her in performing 

this duty. Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(ii). As we also noted in the Title III context, 

Congress established OIG to “keep[] the head of the [Department] . . . informed about 

problems” in the Department and to recommend “corrective action,” 5 U.S.C. app. 

§ 2(3), and OIG’s reviews have historically provided the Department’s leadership 

with “critical advice, information, and insights in connection with the exercise of their 

supervisory responsibilities over the Department’s criminal law enforcement 

programs, policies, and practices,” Yates Letter at 3. It would therefore generally be 

reasonable for a member of Department leadership to conclude that an OIG 

investigation or review that concerns, or is designed to develop recommendations 

about, the manner in which the Department enforces federal criminal law is “necessary 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

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to assist” in the disclosing official’s supervision of that function on a programmatic or 

policy basis. 

We acknowledge that certain language in Sells might be read to suggest a 

narrower scope of appropriate disclosures. In particular, various statements in the 

opinion could be read to suggest that an attorney’s “duty” under exception (A)(i)

includes only her duty to conduct or supervise a particular pending prosecution. See, 

e.g., Sells, 463 U.S. at 427 (“We hold that (A)(i) disclosure is limited to use by those 

attorneys who conduct the criminal matters to which the materials pertain.” 

(emphasis added)); id. at 429 n.11 (stating that “every attorney (including a supervisor) who is working on a prosecution may have access to grand jury materials, at 

least while he is conducting criminal matters” (emphasis added)); id. at 438 (noting 

that the “primary objection” to a proposal to allow disclosures to other governmental 

personnel was a concern that they would use grand jury information “to pursue civil 

investigations or unrelated criminal matters” (emphasis added)). And although 

Sells concerned exception (A)(i)—which authorizes disclosures for use in performing an attorney’s “duty”—rather than exception (A)(ii)—which authorizes 

disclosure in connection with an attorney’s “duty to enforce federal criminal law”—

the Sells Court explained that the “criminal-use limitation” in exception (A)(ii) 

“merely ma[de] explicit what [Congress] believed to be already implicit in the 

existing (A)(i) language.” Id. at 436. This suggests that the Court would have 

viewed its analysis of the limitations on exception (A)(i) as applicable to exception 

(A)(ii) as well. Thus, it might be argued that programmatic and policy supervision 

does not fall within an attorney’s “duty to enforce federal criminal law” because it 

differs from the duties discussed in Sells in two respects: first, it involves 

supervision of law enforcement agents in addition to prosecutors; and second, it 

concerns criminal matters unrelated to the grand jury investigation in which the 

information to be disclosed was developed. It might also be argued that disclosure 

to OIG is different from the disclosures contemplated in Sells because OIG will 

frequently use grand jury information to investigate past conduct in completed law 

enforcement operations, rather than to assist in ongoing prosecutions.

In our view, however, notwithstanding these distinctions, Sells and subsequent 

opinions support reading exception (A)(ii) to permit disclosures to OIG in 

connection with Department leadership’s duties of programmatic and policy 

supervision. With respect to the first arguable distinction—between supervision of 

law enforcement officers and supervision of prosecutors—Sells expressly 

recognized that a prosecutor’s authority to “command[]” law enforcement officers 

is a critical means by which she carries out her prosecutorial duties and renders 

assistance to the grand jury. Sells, 463 U.S. at 430 (stating that “a modern grand jury 

would be much less effective without the assistance of the prosecutor’s office and 

the investigative resources it commands”); id. at 430 n.13 (“Not only would the 

prosecutor ordinarily draw up and supervise the execution of subpoenas, but also he 

commands the investigative forces that might be needed to find out what the grand 

jury wants to know.”). Moreover, as Sells also recognized (and as we noted above), 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

35

Congress added exception (A)(ii) in part to ensure that prosecutors could obtain the 

assistance of law enforcement officers in developing the basis for and conducting 

prosecutions. See id. at 436. Sells therefore fully supports the proposition that the 

duty to supervise prosecutions includes a duty to supervise law enforcement officers 

in conduct that assists with prosecutions.

We likewise believe that the second arguably distinctive characteristic of 

programmatic and policy supervision—that it concerns criminal matters unrelated 

to the grand jury investigation in which the materials being sought were originally 

developed—is consistent with Sells. Lower courts, treatises, and this Office have 

repeatedly interpreted Sells to permit disclosure in connection with any “criminal 

matters to which [grand jury] materials pertain,” id. at 427, and not merely those 

matters in which the information was developed. See, e.g., Impounded, 277 F.3d 

407, 413 (3d Cir. 2002) (holding that the disclosure of grand jury materials to a 

federal prosecutor in another district was permissible under exception (A)(i)); 1 Sara 

Sun Beale et al., Grand Jury Law and Practice § 5:8, at 5-58 (2d ed. 2014) (“Beale”) 

(stating that an attorney may make a disclosure under exception (A)(i) “in 

connection with a separate prosecution”); Shanks Memorandum at 2 (concluding 

that exception (A)(ii) authorizes disclosure to FBI agents assisting in “a specific 

criminal investigation” unrelated to the initial grand jury investigation); cf. Fed. R. 

Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(C) (permitting the automatic disclosure of grand jury materials to 

“another federal grand jury”). This Office has also previously concluded that the 

disclosure authorization in exception (A)(ii) extends to general supervision of law 

enforcement activities as well as to specific prosecutions: In our Rule 6(e) 

Intelligence Community opinion, for example, we advised that the Attorney General 

may make disclosures to assist “a broad criminal law enforcement program for 

which [she] is responsible,” 21 Op. O.L.C. at 171; and in our Disclosure to the 

President opinion, we cited legislative history supporting the view that “Congress 

intended federal prosecutors to have broad leeway in deciding what government 

personnel should have access to grand jury materials for purposes of facilitating 

enforcement functions,” 17 Op. O.L.C. at 62. See also 1 Beale § 5:8, at 5-58 (stating 

that attorneys may disclose materials “in connection with the evaluation or planning 

of broad prosecutorial policies”).

Consistent with these authorities, we do not think the language in Sells referring 

to specific “prosecutions,” e.g., 463 U.S. at 429 n.11, should be read to preclude 

disclosures that an attorney believes could aid the general supervision of the 

Department’s law enforcement programs and activities. To begin with, the Court in 

Sells addressed the permissibility of disclosure only in connection with civil 

litigation, see id. at 420; it did not discuss, and had no occasion to address, the 

permissible scope of disclosure in connection with programmatic supervision of 

criminal law enforcement. Moreover, other language in the opinion is consistent 

with permitting disclosure for broad supervisory purposes. The Court expressly 

noted that exception (A)(ii) gives prosecutors a “free hand concerning use of grand 

jury materials” in connection with criminal matters. Id. at 441–42; see also 
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

36

Disclosure to the President, 17 Op. O.L.C. at 62 (noting the “broad leeway” 

possessed by attorneys under exception (A)(ii)). Further, permitting disclosure for 

broad supervisory purposes would not raise the policy concerns that led the Sells 

Court to deem disclosure for civil purposes unlawful: because such disclosure would 

not be used in connection with investigating the subjects of or witnesses in the 

underlying grand jury investigations, it would not discourage witnesses from 

testifying, create incentives for prosecutors to misuse the grand jury, or subvert 

limits on civil discovery. See Sells, 463 U.S. at 432–34; OPR Memorandum at 4–6

(similarly distinguishing Sells on this basis). In addition, prohibiting such disclosure 

would have the same kinds of disruptive effects we identified in connection with 

Title III, by preventing Department leadership from obtaining (or disclosing) Rule 

6(e) information for the purpose of conducting policy or programmatic supervision 

of grand jury proceedings or other law enforcement programs that used grand jury 

information. For all these reasons, we doubt that if the Supreme Court had squarely 

addressed the question, it would have concluded that exception (A)(ii) does not 

permit the Attorney General and her assistants to obtain or disclose grand jury 

information in order to set policies and develop guidance for law enforcement 

purposes.

Finally, while it is true that OIG officials would frequently use grand jury 

information to evaluate completed law enforcement operations rather than to assist 

in ongoing operations or prosecutions, “supervisors . . . must be able to evaluate 

[past] conduct once a course of action has been set” to “perform properly their 

oversight role.” OPR Memorandum at 7. As we explained in our OPR Memorandum, “post mortem review” of the conduct of a prosecution is necessary to 

evaluate and, if appropriate, take administrative action with respect to that conduct.

Id. at 8. OIG investigations and reviews of the past conduct of Department criminal 

law enforcement programs likewise help Department leadership evaluate that 

conduct and take appropriate corrective action if necessary. We therefore believe 

that, notwithstanding the apparently narrow language in Sells, Department 

leadership’s “duty to enforce federal criminal law” includes its duties to supervise 

Department law enforcement efforts on a programmatic and policy basis, and that 

it would generally be reasonable for Department leadership to “consider[]” it 

“necessary to assist” it in performing these duties to authorize the disclosure of 

grand jury information to OIG in connection with investigations or reviews that 

concern, or are designed to develop recommendations about, the manner in which 

the Department carries out its criminal law enforcement functions. Fed. R. Crim. P. 

6(e)(3)(A)(ii).

As in the Title III context, however, we do not think that exception (A)(ii) would 

permit Department attorneys to disclose grand jury material to OIG in relation to all

OIG audits, investigations, and reviews. In particular, we doubt that a Department 

leadership official may authorize disclosures in connection with investigations that 

are only tangentially related to programmatic and policy supervision of law 

enforcement activities, such as routine financial audits of components that happen 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

37

to engage in law enforcement functions. Similarly, especially in light of Sells, we 

do not believe a Department attorney may authorize disclosure of grand jury 

information to OIG in connection with OIG investigations or reviews that primarily 

relate to civil enforcement or recovery efforts (such as investigations designed to 

assist the Department in recovering funds through a False Claims Act suit), rather 

than criminal prosecutions.

C.

The third and final statutory prohibition on disclosure we consider is section 626 

of FCRA. Congress enacted FCRA to ensure “fair and accurate credit reporting,” 

which it deemed “essential to the continued functioning of the banking system.”

15 U.S.C. § 1681(a)(1). FCRA comprehensively regulates the “confidentiality, 

accuracy, relevancy, and proper utilization” of information held by consumer credit 

reporting agencies. Id. § 1681(b). Among other things, it restricts the circumstances 

in which consumer reporting agencies may disclose consumer credit reports, id. 

§ 1681b; specifies what information may be contained in those reports, id. § 1681c; 

and imposes civil, administrative, and sometimes criminal liability for failure to 

comply with its requirements, id. §§ 1681n–1681s.

In 1996, Congress amended FCRA to add a new basis for disclosure of consumer 

credit information. See Intelligence Authorization Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-93, 

sec. 601(a), § 624, 109 Stat. 961, 974 (codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1681u). The new 

provision, now FCRA section 626, authorizes the FBI to present a consumer credit 

reporting agency with a written request, signed by the Director of the FBI or his 

designee, certifying that the FBI seeks certain information “for the conduct of an 

authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine 

intelligence activities.” 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(a). Upon receipt of such a National 

Security Letter (“NSL”), a credit agency must disclose to the FBI the “names and 

addresses of all financial institutions . . . at which a consumer maintains or has 

maintained an account,” id., and “identifying information respecting a consumer, 

limited to name, address, former addresses, places of employment, or former places 

of employment,” id. § 1681u(b). Section 626(f) bars further dissemination of this 

information except in limited circumstances. It provides:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation may not disseminate information 

obtained pursuant to this section outside of the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation, except to other Federal agencies as may be necessary 

for the approval or conduct of a foreign counterintelligence 

investigation, or, where the information concerns a person subject to 

the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to appropriate investigative 

authorities within the military department concerned as may be 

necessary for the conduct of a joint foreign counterintelligence 

investigation.
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

38

Id. § 1681u(f). FCRA makes any violation of this section by a federal agency or 

officer grounds for civil damages or disciplinary action. Id. § 1681u(i)–(j).

OIG argues that under the terms of section 626(f), it may obtain unrestricted 

access to consumer information that the FBI has obtained under section 626. In 

OIG’s view, it is exempt from the limitations on disclosure contained in 

section 626(f) because it is part of the same agency as the FBI. See OIG 2014 

Memorandum at 12–13; OIG FCRA Memorandum at 3. We consider this argument 

below. In addition, although OIG does not make the argument, we consider whether 

OIG may obtain section 626 information under the first exception set forth in 

section 626(f), which permits the FBI to make disclosures “to other Federal agencies 

as may be necessary for the approval or conduct of a foreign counterintelligence 

investigation.” 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(f). As we will explain, we conclude that although 

OIG is subject to section 626(f)’s prohibition on disclosure, it may nonetheless 

obtain covered information under that provision’s first exception in certain 

circumstances.

1.

OIG argues that it is permitted to obtain section 626 information from the FBI in 

connection with any of its audits, investigations, or reviews. It contends that, while 

section 626(f) bars the FBI from disclosing information obtained pursuant to an 

NSL to “other Federal agencies,” except “as may be necessary for the approval or 

conduct of a foreign counterintelligence investigation,” this bar does not apply to 

OIG because both OIG and the FBI are components of the Department. See OIG 

FCRA Memorandum at 3. OIG argues that this reading of section 626(f) is 

supported by the text of that provision’s first exception, by implication from a 

statute enacted subsequent to section 626, and by the general purposes of OIG 

reviews. See OIG 2014 Memorandum at 12–14; OIG FCRA Memorandum at 2–4.

OIG’s interpretation is difficult to square with the plain language of the statute.

Section 626(f) states that the FBI “may not disseminate information obtained 

pursuant to this section outside of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” except in 

two specific circumstances. On its face, this provision unambiguously bars the FBI 

from disclosing information outside of the FBI, unless an exception applies. OIG is 

outside of the FBI, and so falls within this prohibition on disclosure. OIG’s 

argument—that it is exempt from the prohibition because it is a Department 

component—would require reading “Federal Bureau of Investigation” to mean 

“Department of Justice.” But these two entities are not equivalent, and Congress 

chose to refer to the former rather than the latter in section 626(f). 

OIG disputes this straightforward reading of section 626(f) by pointing to the 

provision’s first exception, which permits the FBI to disclose section 626 

information to “other Federal agencies.” OIG reasons that because other 

components of the Department are part of the same agency as the FBI, and “not an 

‘other Federal agency’” relative to the FBI, they cannot qualify for disclosure under 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

39

this exception. OIG FCRA Memorandum at 2. As a consequence, this argument 

continues, reading section 626(f) as its plain text indicates would lead to the unlikely 

result that the FBI could never disclose section 626 information to Department 

officials outside the FBI—a result that, as OIG explains, would be inconsistent with 

the Department’s longstanding practice of making section 626 information 

available to the National Security Division (“NSD”) for purposes of overseeing the 

FBI’s operations. See id.

We agree that it is highly unlikely that Congress would have barred the FBI from 

disclosing section 626 information within the Department, particularly while 

permitting such disclosure to agencies outside the Department. However, we 

disagree that the statute’s reference to “other Federal agencies” compels such a 

result. Although the term “agency” is sometimes used to refer to the Department of 

Justice as a whole, it is also used to refer to components within the Department.

Compare 28 U.S.C. § 527 (distinguishing between “the Department of Justice” and 

“other Federal agencies”) and 5 U.S.C. § 5721(1)(A) (“[f]or the purpose of this 

subchapter . . . ‘agency’ means . . . an Executive agency”) with 28 U.S.C. § 509 

(vesting “all functions of agencies and employees of the Department of Justice” in 

the Attorney General) and 5 U.S.C. § 551 (“For the purpose of this subchapter . . .

‘agency’ means each authority of the Government of the United States, whether or 

not it is within or subject to review by another agency.”). In our view, the term 

“agency” is best read in the latter sense in section 626(f). Notably, the statute does 

not simply state that the FBI “may not disseminate [section 626 information], except 

to other Federal agencies” for certain purposes; it says the FBI “may not disseminate 

[section 626 information] outside the FBI, except to other Federal agencies” for 

those purposes. 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(f) (emphasis added). The express reference to 

“outside the FBI” strongly suggests that “other Federal agencies” refers to any 

federal entity other than the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including other 

components of the Department.

This conclusion is reinforced by the significant role that other Department 

components play in “the approval or conduct of [the FBI’s] foreign 

counterintelligence investigation[s].” Id. For decades, the Attorney General has 

been authorized to “supervis[e]” and “establish” “regulations” concerning the FBI’s 

counterintelligence activities. Exec. Order No. 12333, § 1.14, 46 Fed. Reg. 59941, 

59949 (Dec. 4, 1981); see The Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI 

Operations at 5 (Sept. 2008) (“AG Guidelines”) (available at http://www.justice.

gov/sites/default/files/ag/legacy/2008/10/03/guidelines.pdf, last visited July 20, 

2015) (setting guidelines for the conduct of domestic FBI operations, including 

“counterintelligence activities”); Memorandum for the Director, FBI, et al., from 

the Attorney General, Re: Intelligence Sharing Procedures for Foreign Intelligence 

and Foreign Counterintelligence Investigations Conducted by the FBI (Mar. 6, 

2002); 28 C.F.R. § 0.72 (assigning counterintelligence oversight functions to NSD).

By permitting disclosure for the “approval” of counterintelligence investigations, 

Congress presumably intended to permit the FBI to make disclosures consistent with 
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40

this longstanding grant of supervisory authority. Indeed, a prior version of the bill 

would have made the first exception applicable exclusively to disclosures within the 

Department of Justice. See Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995, 

S. 735, 104th Cong. § 502(a) (1995) (“The [FBI] may not disseminate information 

obtained pursuant to this section outside of the [FBI], except . . . to the Department 

of Justice, as may be necessary for the approval or conduct of a foreign 

counterintelligence operation.”). It is unlikely that, in later broadening the scope of 

the exception to allow disclosures to “other Federal agencies,” Congress intended 

to exclude disclosures to the agency that was previously the exception’s sole 

beneficiary.

OIG also argues that its view that section 626(f) permits disclosure to OIG finds 

support in a statutory provision Congress enacted after section 626: section 119 of 

the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 

109-177, 120 Stat. 192, 219 (“Patriot Reauthorization Act”). As OIG points out, 

section 119 of the Patriot Reauthorization Act directed OIG to “perform an audit of 

the effectiveness and use, including any improper or illegal use, of national security 

letters issued by the Department of Justice,” including NSLs issued pursuant to 

section 626. Id. § 119(a), (g)(4). OIG argues that “[f]ulfilling the mandates of the 

Patriot Reauthorization Act . . . clearly required [it] to have access to the ‘raw data’ 

the Department obtained through [NSLs], including Section [626] credit report 

information.” OIG 2014 Memorandum at 13. And because that Act “contained no 

provision granting the OIG access to Section [626] information,” OIG reasons that 

“in 2005 Congress believed the OIG already had access to FCRA information in 

order to audit such dissemination.” Id. (emphasis added). But this provision suggests 

at most that the Congress that enacted the Patriot Reauthorization Act believed OIG 

would have access to section 626 information as necessary for OIG to evaluate the 

legality and effectiveness of the Department’s use of NSLs. And for reasons we 

explain below, we believe OIG is eligible to receive section 626 information for that 

purpose under section 626(f)’s first exception. See infra Part II.C.2. The Patriot 

Reauthorization Act thus does not provide a basis for reading section 626(f), 

contrary to its plain text, to grant OIG unfettered access to such information.

Finally, OIG contends that the limits on dissemination contained in section 626 

were intended to protect consumer privacy, and that it would undermine rather than 

further that purpose to prohibit OIG from obtaining the information necessary to 

determine whether the FBI is abiding by section 626’s requirements. See OIG 2014 

Memorandum at 12–13; OIG FCRA Memorandum at 3. We agree that, in enacting 

section 626, Congress sought to build “safeguards . . . into the legislation” that 

would “minimiz[e]” the “threat to privacy” posed by the FBI’s ability to use NSLs.

H.R. Rep. No. 104-427, at 36 (1995); see also 15 U.S.C. § 1681(a)(4) (finding “a 

need to insure that consumer reporting agencies exercise their grave responsibilities 

with . . . a respect for the consumer’s right to privacy”). But it is entirely consistent 

with Congress’s purpose of protecting consumer privacy to prevent broad disclosure 

of consumer information even within the Department of Justice. Nor would a 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

41

restriction on disclosure outside the FBI necessarily preclude all oversight of the use 

of section 626 authority, insofar as the FBI’s internal audit department or Office of 

Professional Responsibility could conduct reviews of the use of that authority.

Further, as we explain below, we believe OIG may obtain section 626 information 

in order to monitor the FBI’s compliance with FCRA’s disclosure restrictions 

pursuant to section 626(f)’s first exception. The statute’s purpose thus does require 

OIG to have blanket access to section 626 information. 

2.

We now consider whether OIG is eligible to receive disclosures under 

section 626(f)’s first exception, which authorizes the FBI to disclose information 

obtained pursuant to an NSL “to other Federal agencies as may be necessary for the 

approval or conduct of a foreign counterintelligence investigation.” 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1681u(f). As we have discussed, components of the Department outside the FBI, 

including OIG, are “other Federal agencies” within the meaning of this provision.

See supra pp. 38–40. Consequently, this exception permits OIG to obtain access to 

section 626 information “as may be necessary for the approval or conduct of a 

foreign counterintelligence investigation.” 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(f).

In our view, this language authorizes disclosure in two broad circumstances. First, 

and most straightforwardly, it authorizes disclosures as necessary to facilitate approval 

of a particular foreign counterintelligence investigation, or to obtain assistance in 

conducting such an investigation.16 For example, the first exception would allow the 

FBI to disclose information to Department attorneys in order to enable those attorneys 

to file an application for electronic surveillance pursuant to Title III or the Foreign 

Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1801 et seq., or to advise the FBI 

on the legality of a method the FBI proposes to use in an investigation. In addition, 

the first exception would allow the FBI to disclose information to Department 

supervisors to enable them to monitor a particular foreign counterintelligence 

operation, to ensure that it was being conducted lawfully and in conformance with 

Department guidelines.

Second, we believe that section 626(f)’s first exception permits disclosure of 

information as necessary for the programmatic and policy supervision of foreign 

counterintelligence investigations generally—that is, to ensure that investigations 

are (or were) approved or conducted in accordance with applicable statutes, 

regulations, and guidelines; to identify systemic problems in the approval or conduct 

of investigations; and to update guidelines and procedures in response to identified 

deficiencies. It is true that section 626(f) authorizes disclosures only as necessary 

for the approval or conduct of “a foreign counterintelligence investigation.” But 

Congress has instructed that “unless the context indicates otherwise . . . words 

 

16 As in the case of Rule 6(e)(3)(A)(ii), we presume that Congress used the word “necessary” to mean 

useful or conducive rather than required. See supra note 15.
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42

importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things.”

1 U.S.C. § 1; see also Caraco Pharm. Labs., Ltd. v. Novo Nordisk A/S, 132 S. Ct. 

1670, 1681 (2012) (explaining that the meaning of the word “a” and its variants 

“turns on its context”). In this case, we have not found any indication in the statute 

or its legislative history—apart from the use of the phrase “a[n] . . . investigation” 

itself—that Congress intended to permit disclosures in connection with only one 

investigation at a time. Nor, of particular relevance here, can we find any indication 

that Congress intended to prevent Department leadership officials from obtaining 

information protected by section 626(f) for use in supervising the FBI’s conduct of 

foreign counterintelligence investigations. In a manner similar to that discussed in 

the Title III and Rule 6(e) contexts, Department leadership would be severely 

constrained in its ability to supervise the FBI’s conduct of such investigations on a 

programmatic or policy basis, and to supervise the FBI’s use of NSLs issued 

pursuant to section 626 on a similar basis, if it could not obtain section 626 

information for that purpose. Indeed, under guidance issued by Department 

leadership, the FBI routinely provides section 626 information to other Department 

components to assist in such supervision. See, e.g., AG Guidelines at 10–11 

(authorizing disclosure of section 626 information to NSD for supervisory 

purposes). And, as noted above, Congress likewise assumed in the Patriot 

Reauthorization Act that OIG would be able to obtain the “raw data” needed to 

conduct a review of the FBI’s use of NSLs. See supra p. 40. In light of these 

considerations, we believe that section 626(f)’s first exception permits the FBI to 

disclose section 626 information not only to obtain assistance in “the approval or 

conduct” of a particular foreign counterintelligence investigation, but also to aid in 

supervision of “the approval or conduct” of foreign counterintelligence 

investigations generally.

OIG may in principle obtain section 626 information under either of these 

rationales. It appears unlikely that the FBI would need to disclose section 626 

information to OIG to obtain assistance in the approval or conduct of a particular 

foreign counterintelligence investigation, since OIG involvement in such investigations would generally entail exercising “program operating responsibilities” that the 

Attorney General may not assign to OIG. 5 U.S.C. app. § 9(a); see also Authority to 

Conduct Regulatory Investigations, 13 Op. O.L.C. at 61–62. However, there might 

be rare circumstances in which a foreign counterintelligence investigation was 

intertwined with an investigation of internal misconduct. In such circumstances, it 

is conceivable that OIG could obtain section 626 information to facilitate the 

conduct of that investigation. 

In other circumstances, OIG could obtain information under the broader 

supervisory rationale. As we have noted elsewhere, OIG plays a central role in helping 

Department leadership supervise the Department’s law enforcement activities through 

both reviews of misconduct and programmatic reviews intended to help improve law 

enforcement operations in the future. See supra pp. 16–18, 33–34. In the context of 

section 626, it is reasonable to conclude that OIG investigations and reviews that could 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

43

inform decisions by Department leadership concerning supervision of foreign 

counterintelligence investigations—such as OIG’s congressionally-mandated review 

of the FBI’s use of NSLs—are “necessary for the approval or conduct of” those 

investigations within the meaning of section 626(f). An OIG review of foreign 

counterintelligence investigations could, for example, lead to changes in the process 

for authorizing such investigations, or help leadership officials ensure that 

investigations are carried out lawfully. Indeed, OIG’s review of the FBI’s use of NSLs 

illustrates how such a process might work. After that review uncovered serious 

problems with the FBI’s use of NSLs, the Department implemented a number of 

measures aimed at ensuring greater supervision and control of the FBI’s activities. See 

Fact Sheet: Department of Justice Corrective Actions on the FBI’s Use of National 

Security Letters (Mar. 20, 2007) (available at http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/

2007/March/07_nsd_168.html, last visited July 20, 2015) (“Corrective Actions on the 

FBI’s Use of NSLs”). These measures included retrospective and continuing audits of 

the FBI’s NSL usage designed to identify potential legal violations, as well as 

measures intended to allow the Attorney General to promptly address needed changes 

in policy, training, and oversight. Id. Because investigations and reviews of this kind 

concern, or are designed to develop recommendations about, leadership decisions 

regarding the approval or conduct of foreign counterintelligence investigations, they 

are in our view “necessary to the approval or conduct” of such investigations as that 

phrase is used in section 626(f).

This reading of section 626(f) is further supported by the FBI’s practice of 

providing information obtained through NSLs to NSD to facilitate NSD’s 

supervision of the FBI’s compliance with applicable laws and guidelines in matters 

relating to national security and foreign intelligence. See AG Guidelines at 10–11.

OIG correctly notes that NSD was given responsibility to oversee the FBI’s 

activities following OIG’s critical review of the FBI’s use of NSLs, and that NSD’s 

reviews are patterned after OIG reviews. See NSD E-mail; see also OIG FCRA 

Memorandum; Corrective Actions on the FBI’s Use of NSLs. It would be 

incongruous to conclude that the FBI may disseminate section 626 information to 

NSD because its reviews are “necessary for the approval or conduct of a foreign 

counterintelligence investigation,” but that the FBI is barred from providing the 

same information to OIG in connection with reviews that share a similar purpose 

and methodology, and likewise assist the Department’s leadership in its supervisory 

functions. For reasons similar to those set forth in our discussion of Title III, see 

supra p. 18, we do not believe that OIG’s relative independence from the 

Department’s leadership makes its reviews less valuable to leadership, or less 

“necessary for the approval or conduct” of foreign counterintelligence investigations, than the comparable reviews performed by NSD. 

Accordingly, we conclude that the FBI may disseminate section 626 information 

to OIG in connection with investigations and reviews that concern, or are designed 

to develop recommendations about, leadership decisions regarding the approval or 

conduct of foreign counterintelligence investigations. This conclusion, however, is 
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44

subject to the same limitation we have explained in other contexts: OIG audits, 

investigations, and reviews that have only an attenuated connection to Department 

leadership’s supervisory responsibilities relating to foreign counterintelligence 

investigations, such as routine financial audits of the FBI entities that carry out such 

investigations, would likely not qualify for disclosure under section 626. See supra 

pp. 18–19, 36–37 (discussing similar limit in the context of Title III and Rule 6(e) 

disclosures).

* * * * *

In sum, Title III, Rule 6(e), and FCRA permit the disclosure of covered 

information in connection with many of OIG’s investigations and reviews. Title III 

permits a Department investigative or law enforcement officer to disclose to OIG 

the contents of intercepted communications to the extent that disclosure could aid 

either the disclosing official or OIG in the performance of their respective duties 

related to law enforcement—including duties related to Department leadership’s 

programmatic or policy supervision of the Department’s law enforcement activities.

Rule 6(e), similarly, permits the disclosure of grand jury materials to OIG if an 

attorney for the government determines that such disclosure could assist her in the 

performance of her criminal law enforcement duties, including any supervisory law 

enforcement duties that attorney may have. And FCRA permits the FBI to disclose 

to OIG consumer information it obtained pursuant to section 626, if such a 

disclosure could assist in the approval or conduct of foreign counterintelligence 

investigations, including in the supervision of such investigations on a programmatic or policy basis. 17

These statutes do not, however, authorize Department officials to disclose 

protected information to OIG in connection with all of OIG’s activities. As we have 

noted, Title III and Rule 6(e) do not permit disclosures that have either an attenuated 

or no connection with the conduct of the Department’s criminal law enforcement 

programs and operations, and section 626 of FCRA does not permit disclosures that 

have either an attenuated or no connection with the approval or conduct of foreign 

counterintelligence investigations. Thus, for example, Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 

626 do not permit OIG to obtain covered information to assist in investigations of the 

Department’s civil activities that are only tangentially related to criminal law 

enforcement or foreign counterintelligence efforts, or to conduct routine financial 

audits of Department components. Even when these statutes permit disclosures to 

OIG, moreover, they impose certain procedural preconditions on those disclosures.

 17 You have not asked, and this opinion does not address, what further disclosures OIG may make of 

sensitive information it receives under Title III, Rule 6(e), or FCRA. We stress, however, that nothing in 

this opinion is intended to suggest that OIG may disclose protected materials in a public report.

Information received by OIG remains subject to the statutory restrictions on disclosure, and OIG may 

further disclose that information only to the extent permitted by those restrictions and any other 

applicable laws.
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

45

Disclosures under Title III require an assessment of whether a particular OIG 

investigation is appropriate to the proper performance of an official duty related to law 

enforcement. Disclosures under Rule 6(e) require an independent judgment, made by 

an attorney for the government, that OIG assistance is necessary to perform that 

attorney’s duty to enforce criminal law, and further require compliance with certain 

additional procedural obligations. And disclosures under section 626 of FCRA require 

an assessment of whether an OIG investigation is “necessary for the approval or 

conduct” of foreign counterintelligence investigations.

If section 6(a)(1) of the IG Act displaced the limitations on disclosure in these 

statutes, it would—unlike these statutory exceptions—permit unconstrained

disclosure of all protected information to OIG. Thus, OIG could receive information 

protected by Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 in connection with its 

investigations of the Department’s civil activities, its routine financial or 

administrative audits, and any other of its authorized activities. Moreover, 

information already available to OIG under the terms of Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626 would be available without a prior assessment of whether that 

information was related to the Department’s law enforcement functions or the FBI’s 

conduct of foreign counterintelligence investigations, and, in the case of Rule 6(e) 

information, without a prior determination by an attorney for the government that 

OIG assistance was necessary to assist in performing the attorney’s duty to enforce 

federal criminal law. Because section 6(a)(1) would thus provide OIG with access 

to protected information in more circumstances and on broader terms than are 

provided for in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 themselves, we must consider 

whether section 6(a)(1) overrides the limits imposed by those statutes.

III.

In this Part, we address whether section 6(a)(1) overrides the disclosure 

limitations in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626. We first discuss the general 

interpretive principles that will guide our analysis, concluding that only a clear 

statement of congressional intent to override conflicting statutes would be sufficient 

to abrogate the detailed prohibitions on disclosing sensitive information contained 

in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626. We then analyze the text, structure, and 

history of the IG Act to determine whether it contains such a clear statement.

Finding that it does not, we conclude that the Department remains bound by 

Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 when it responds to OIG requests under 

section 6(a)(1), and thus that it may not disclose information covered by those 

statutes outside the circumstances permitted by the statutes themselves. 

A.

Both the Supreme Court and this Office have repeatedly confronted apparent 

conflicts between statutes that address the same subject matter. Two lines of 
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46

authority are particularly relevant here. In the first, the Court and this Office have 

considered whether statutory provisions protecting highly sensitive information can 

be overridden by competing statutory rights of access. In the second, which is 

sometimes intertwined with the first, the Court and this Office have considered the 

circumstances in which a general statute can be construed to override a more 

specific statutory provision. In addressing these subjects, the Court and this Office 

have identified two salient interpretive principles that will guide our analysis.

First, in a range of contexts—including contexts involving information protected 

by Rule 6(e) and Title III—the Supreme Court and this Office have declined to infer 

that Congress intended to override statutory limits on the disclosure of highly 

sensitive information about which Congress has expressed a special concern for 

privacy, absent a clear statement of congressional intent to that effect. In Illinois v. 

Abbott & Associates, Inc., 460 U.S. 557 (1983), for example, the Court held that an 

antitrust statute authorizing state attorneys general to obtain, “to the extent permitted 

by law, any investigative files or other materials” relevant to an antitrust suit, 15 

U.S.C. § 15f(a) (1976), did not supersede the limits of Rule 6(e). 460 U.S. at 565.

The Court relied primarily on the statute’s use of the phrase “to the extent permitted 

by law,” which it read to exclude from the statute’s scope any disclosures not 

authorized by Rule 6(e). Id. at 566–69. But in response to the argument that such a 

reading would frustrate the statute’s purpose by “severely limit[ing] the amount of 

additional disclosure to state attorneys general” it made possible, id. at 572, the 

Court further explained that because the rule of grand jury secrecy was “so 

important, and so deeply-rooted in our traditions,” it would “not infer that Congress 

has exercised [the] power [to modify it] without affirmatively expressing its intent 

to do so,” id. at 572–73.

The Court and this Office have since applied this clear statement rule to Rule 6(e) 

information on multiple occasions. In Sells, discussed above, the Court concluded 

that Department attorneys could not disclose grand jury information for use in civil 

cases in part because “the long-established policy” and “importan[ce]” of grand jury 

secrecy meant that, “[i]n the absence of a clear indication in a statute or Rule,” the 

Court “must always be reluctant to conclude that a breach of [grand jury] secrecy 

has been authorized.” 463 U.S. at 424–25 (internal quotation marks omitted); see 

id. at 435 (refusing to adopt a “plausible” but broad construction of exception (A)(i) 

in light of the policy of grand jury secrecy and the Rule’s legislative history). And 

in our Rule 6(e) Intelligence Community opinion, this Office concluded that section 

104(a) of the National Security Act, which granted the Director of Central 

Intelligence access to “all intelligence related to the national security,” did not 

“override grand jury secrecy restrictions” because it did not “clearly manifest an 

intent to reach grand jury information.” 21 Op. O.L.C. at 165 (emphasis added); see 

also Memorandum for Richard K. Willard, Assistant Attorney General, Civil 

Division, from Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of 

Legal Counsel, Re: Authority of the FBI to Transfer Restricted Records to the 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

47

National Archives and Records Administration at 2 (Feb. 27, 1986) (“FBI NARA 

Memorandum”).

This Office has concluded that “a similar approach is appropriate” to the 

protection of Title III information. Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. 

at 273. In our Title III Intelligence Community opinion, we considered whether the 

same provision of the National Security Act addressed in our Rule 6(e) Intelligence 

Community opinion, section 104(a), superseded Title III’s limits on the disclosure 

of the contents of electronic communications. We reasoned that even though 

“Title III does not have the historical roots of the grand jury secrecy rule,” we should 

be similarly reluctant to conclude that Congress had abrogated Title III’s limits. Id.

This was so, we explained, because of the strong “privacy interests underlying” and 

reflected in Title III, and the “constitutional concerns” that might be raised by 

permitting government entities to broadly disclose the contents of intercepted 

communications between private parties. Id. at 272–73 (citing In re Application of 

Nat’l Broad. Co., 735 F.2d 51 (2d Cir. 1984)); see also Scott, 436 U.S. at 132 (noting 

that Berger and Katz “proscribed” the “indiscriminate use of wire surveillance” 

(internal quotation marks omitted)). We also observed that “[n]othing in the 

language of section 104(a) . . . refers to Title III information,” and that “there is 

nothing in the legislative history of that section that suggests that Congress 

considered Title III information” in enacting that statute. Title III Intelligence 

Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 272. We therefore advised that “in the absence of at 

least some evidence that Congress intended to create a new exception to Title III’s 

limits on disclosure,” section 104(a) of the National Security Act should not be read 

to “permit otherwise prohibited disclosure of Title III information to members of 

the intelligence community.” Id. at 273. Likewise, facing an apparent conflict 

between Title III and a statute authorizing the FBI to transfer records to the National 

Archives and Records Administration, we explained that because Title III, like 

Rule 6(e), “enact[s] [a] strict rule[] of secrecy,” makes violations of the rule a 

felony, and “protect[s] highly important privacy rights,” its provisions had to “take 

precedence” over the statute governing transfers to the National Archives, absent 

“evidence that Congress contemplated” the transfer of Title III information to the 

Archives. FBI NARA Memorandum at 2.

We have not previously considered whether a similar clear statement rule should 

apply to information protected by section 626 of FCRA. But we have applied much 

the same clear statement rule to other highly sensitive information, in addition to 

Title III and Rule 6(e) information, that Congress has protected from disclosure 

through statutes that suggest a special concern for privacy. For instance, we 

concluded in 1977 that “any doubts” about Congress’s intent to permit disclosure of 

tax return information “should be resolved in favor” of confidentiality, in light of 

the “rigid safeguards” Congress set up in the statute and the strict penalties that 

Congress imposed for unauthorized disclosure. Transfer of Watergate Special 

Prosecution Task Force Records to the National Archives, 1 Op. O.L.C. 216, 218–

19 (1977) (“Watergate NARA Opinion”); see id. at 219 (advising that disclosure of 
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48

such records would be lawful only if there were “explicit legislative authorization”).

Reaffirming this conclusion in 1986, we explained that the reasons for applying a 

clear statement rule to tax return information were “similar” to those underlying the 

rule for Title III and Rule 6(e) information: the language of all three statutory 

regimes, together with their legislative history, “express[ed] a strong congressional 

intent to maintain very strict privacy for such information.” FBI NARA 

Memorandum at 1–2. Similarly, we have long concluded that in light of “the federal 

government’s longstanding commitment to confidentiality” of census information,

and the “broad confidentiality protection[s]” that Congress enacted for such 

information, we must not infer that a statute authorizes its disclosure unless “the 

evidence of congressional intention compel[s] such a conclusion.” Memorandum 

for Cameron F. Kerry, General Counsel, Dep’t of Commerce, from Jeannie S. Rhee, 

Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: Census 

Confidentiality and the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing 

Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 at 8 

(Jan. 4, 2010) (“Census Confidentiality”); see also Confidential Treatment of 

Census Records, 40 Op. Att’y Gen. 326, 328 (1944); United States v. Bethlehem 

Steel Corp., 21 F.R.D. 568, 572 (S.D.N.Y. 1958) (stating that “the purpose to protect 

the privacy of [census] information . . . is so clear and the public policy underlying 

the purpose so compelling” that authority to abrogate that privacy should not be 

inferred “absent a clear Congressional grant”).

In our view, the logic of these opinions, and of the prior opinions concerning 

Rule 6(e) and Title III information, extends to section 626 of FCRA. All of these 

opinions involved highly sensitive information with respect to which Congress has 

“expressed a strong congressional intent to maintain very strict privacy” in various 

ways, including through “strict” or “rigid” rules of secrecy applicable to government 

officials, FBI NARA Memorandum at 1–2; Watergate NARA Opinion, 1 Op. 

O.L.C. at 219; penalties for unauthorized disclosure, FBI NARA Memorandum

at 2–3; Watergate NARA Opinion, 1 Op. O.L.C. at 218; and, in some but not all 

circumstances, a “long-established policy” of confidentiality, Sells, 463 U.S. at 424; 

Census Confidentiality at 8; cf. Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. 

at 273 (noting that “Title III does not have the historical roots of the grand jury 

secrecy rule”). Further, “the privacy interests at stake” in these opinions were “not 

primarily those of the government but of third parties, such as taxpayers and grand 

jury witnesses,” whose rights the federal government has “a duty to protect.” FBI 

NARA Memorandum at 3; accord Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. 

at 273. As discussed above, section 626, like Rule 6(e), Title III, and the statutes 

governing protection and disclosure of tax return and census information, imposes 

a strict duty of confidentiality, enforced by penalties for improper disclosure. See 

supra Part II.C; 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(f), (i)–(j). Further, section 626 information, like 

grand jury, Title III, tax return, and census information, is highly sensitive 

information about private individuals rather than the government—indeed, it is 

information that the government may have obtained without the subject’s 
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49

knowledge. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(d) (authorizing the FBI to bar the provider of 

section 626 information, in certain circumstances, from informing others about the 

disclosure). We thus think there is a strong argument that the federal government 

has a similar “duty to protect [the statutory privacy] rights” in section 626 unless 

“Congress’s command is clear.” FBI NARA Memorandum at 3. See generally

Sossamon v. Texas, 131 S. Ct. 1651, 1661 (2011) (“‘[C]lear statement rules ensure 

Congress does not, by broad or general language, legislate on a sensitive topic 

inadvertently or without due deliberation.’” (alteration in original) (quoting Spector 

v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., 545 U.S. 119, 139 (2005) (plurality opinion))).

A second general principle, complementary to and often applied in conjunction 

with the first, also informs our analysis. Where the Court and this Office have faced 

apparent conflicts between two competing statutes, they have frequently resolved 

the question by applying the “rule of relative specificity.” This “cardinal axiom of 

statutory construction,” GAO Access to Trade Secret Information, 12 Op. O.L.C. 

181, 182 (1988) (“GAO Access”), holds that “[w]here there is no clear 

[congressional] intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or 

nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment,” Morton, 

417 U.S. at 550–51. Under this rule, if “a general permission or prohibition is 

contradicted by a specific prohibition or permission,” then “the specific provision is 

construed as an exception to the general one,” absent strong “textual indications that 

point in the other direction.” RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, 

132 S. Ct. 2065, 2071–72 (2012); see, e.g., Morton, 417 U.S. at 535 (construing 

section 12 of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 as an exception to the Equal 

Employment Opportunity Act of 1972). This rule ensures that congressional 

commands are followed to the fullest extent possible, by giving effect to the more 

focused or particularized expression of Congress’s will on the particular question at 

hand.

Applying the rule of relative specificity, we have often concluded that statutes 

barring the disclosure of particular types of information by particular entities, 

subject to particular exceptions, take precedence over statutes broadly entitling an 

entity to examine federal records. In our GAO Access opinion, for instance, we 

determined that a statute prohibiting the Food and Drug Administration from 

disclosing trade secrets except to certain specified individuals and entities took 

precedence over 31 U.S.C. § 716(a), a statute providing that “[e]ach agency shall 

give the Comptroller General information [he] requires about the duties, powers, 

activities, organization, and financial transactions of the agency.” See 12 Op. O.L.C. 

at 182. “Since [the trade secrets statute] is a specific statute directly addressing one 

executive branch agency’s handling of trade secret information, while [the 

Comptroller General statute] is a general statute addressed to all kinds of 

information in possession of the executive branch,” we reasoned, “[the trade secrets 

statute] controls in the absence of congressional intent to the contrary.” Id. at 182–

83. Applying the same reasoning, we later concluded that section 716(a) also had to 

give way to a “specific provision” that restricted “which recipients” could obtain
Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in Volume 39

50

certain employment information from the Department of Health and Human 

Services “and under what circumstances.” Memorandum for William B. Schultz, 

Acting General Counsel, Dep’t of Health and Human Services, from John E. Bies, 

Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: Whether the 

Department of Health and Human Services May Provide the Government 

Accountability Office Access to Information in the National Directory of New Hires

at 6 (Aug. 23, 2011). In yet another opinion, we concluded that this principle 

required that a statute specifically regulating “the disclosure of information received 

pursuant to” the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act “prevails over” the 

Federal Reports Act, which “deals with . . . the general matter of the 

intragovernmental exchange of information.” Disclosure of Confidential Business 

Records Obtained Under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, 4B Op. 

O.L.C. 735, 736 (1980).

In other instances, we have concluded that the rule of relative specificity operates 

in tandem with the clear statement rule protecting highly sensitive information about 

which Congress has expressed a special concern for privacy. For instance, we have 

repeatedly stated that the rule of relative specificity, in conjunction with the other 

clear statement rule discussed above, favors the “subsequently enacted, more 

specific prohibition” on the disclosure of tax returns contained in 26 U.S.C. § 6103 

over the “general access provisions” permitting the Archivist of the United States 

to obtain the records, including the confidential records, of any federal agency.

National Archives Access to Taxpayer Information, 21 Op. O.L.C. 92, 94–95 

(1997). We reasoned that Congress had provided that “tax returns and tax return 

information would be disclosed only under the carefully prescribed conditions set 

out in” section 6103, and thus that it would be “unrealistic to assume that Congress 

intended (but neglected to mention) that such materials would also be subject to 

disclosure under the Archives provisions.” FBI NARA Memorandum at 2; see also

Memorandum for Alice Daniel, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, from 

Leon Ulman, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: 

Applicability of the Non-Disclosure Provisions of the Tax Reform Act (Nov. 7, 

1980); Watergate NARA Opinion, 1 Op. O.L.C. at 218–19. We have similarly relied 

on the rule of relative specificity to bolster our conclusions that Congress would not, 

absent a clear statement, have overridden the “specific” and “carefully delineated” 

schemes protecting Rule 6(e), Title III, and census information through general 

statutes providing broad access to large categories of information held by multiple 

government agencies. FBI NARA Memorandum at 2; see Census Confidentiality at 

11–12.

The rule of relative specificity, of course, does not always favor a withholding 

statute over an access statute. Sometimes we have deemed the rule inapplicable 

because two competing statutes were comparably specific. In resolving a conflict 

between Rule 6(e)’s secrecy requirement and the right of access under 

section 104(a) of the National Security Act, for example, we found the rule 

inconclusive because both statutes dealt with “narrow and specialized categories of 
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information”—although we nonetheless found that Rule 6(e) prevailed over 

section 104(a) because of the clear statement rule protecting highly sensitive 

information. Rule 6(e) Intelligence Community, 21 Op. O.L.C. at 165 n.9; see also 

Gulf War Veterans Health Statutes, 23 Op. O.L.C. 49, 52 (1999) (deeming the canon 

inconclusive where “the two provisions are at the same order of specificity”). In 

another circumstance, we concluded that the rule of relative specificity was 

inconclusive in resolving a conflict between two statutes because each was “more 

specific” in one respect but “less specific” in another. Restrictions on Travel by 

Voice of America Correspondents, 23 Op. O.L.C. 192, 195 n.2 (1999).

Here, we believe the rule of relative specificity applies, and suggests that the 

nondisclosure provisions in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 should prevail over 

the general right of access contained in section 6(a)(1) absent a clear indication of 

congressional intent to the contrary. Most obviously, the withholding statutes 

address with greater specificity the type of information they regulate: where 

section 6(a)(1) directs agencies to disclose “all records” and other materials within 

an inspector general’s investigative jurisdiction, Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 

address the treatment of narrow and well-defined classes of information. See 

18 U.S.C. § 2517 (“the contents of any [intercepted] wire, oral, or electronic 

communication”); Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(2)(B) (“a matter occurring before the grand 

jury”); 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(a)–(c) (“the names and addresses of all financial 

institutions . . . at which a consumer maintains or has maintained an account,” the 

consumer’s “name, address, former addresses, places of employment, or former 

places of employment,” and “consumer report[s]”). And, as we have explained 

above, see supra Part II, Congress “carefully prescribed” the precise conditions 

under which disclosure of Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 information would 

be lawful, FBI NARA Memorandum at 2. This precise specification makes it 

“unrealistic” to think that Congress would have intended to permit disclosure 

outside of the conditions it prescribed, absent a clear indication of an intent to do 

so. Id.; see Watergate NARA Opinion, 1 Op. O.L.C. at 218 (“The amount of 

attention that was paid to the formulation of the exceptions would allow for an 

inference that no exception was intended as to the Archives.”); see also Hinck v. 

United States, 550 U.S. 501, 506 (2007) (“[I]n most contexts, a precisely drawn, 

detailed statute pre-empts more general remedies.” (internal quotation marks 

omitted)).

Section 6(a)(1) is arguably as specific as the withholding statutes with respect to 

the lawful recipients of information: section 6(a)(1) grants access only to particular 

identified individuals. However, the careful prescriptions of the conditions for 

disclosure contained in the withholding statutes demonstrates that even in this 

respect, they are more specific than section 6(a)(1). The withholding statutes specify 

not only the lawful recipients of Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 information, 

but also the circumstances in which those recipients may obtain information.

Title III, for example, authorizes disclosure to investigative or law enforcement 

officers only “to the extent that such disclosure is appropriate to the proper 
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performance of the official duties of the officer making or receiving the disclosure,” 

18 U.S.C. § 2517(1); Rule 6(e) authorizes disclosure to an attorney for the 

government only “for use in performing that attorney’s duty” to enforce federal 

criminal law, Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(i); and section 626 authorizes the FBI to 

disclose covered information to other federal agencies only “as may be necessary 

for the approval or conduct of a foreign counterintelligence investigation,” 

15 U.S.C. § 1681u(f). By contrast, section 6(a)(1) authorizes disclosure to “the 

Inspector General,” but the IG Act is silent as to how an inspector general may use 

information he has obtained pursuant to section 6(a)(1), other than to set forth the 

general duties and responsibilities of the office that implicitly constrain the use of 

such information. See, e.g., 5 U.S.C. app. § 4; Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Office of 

Inspector Gen., R.R. Retirement Bd., 983 F.2d 631, 641 (5th Cir. 1993) (“[A]n 

Inspector General’s investigatory powers generally [do not] extend to matters that 

do not concern fraud, inefficiency, or waste within a federal agency.”).18

Accordingly, the rule of relative specificity applies here, and reinforces the other 

clear statement principle discussed above. Just as that principle requires a clear 

statement before we may conclude that Congress abrogated the confidentiality of 

Rule 6(e), Title III, or section 626 information, so the rule of relative specificity 

requires a clear statement before we may conclude that the general right of access 

granted by section 6(a)(1) takes precedence over the specific, carefully delineated 

limits on disclosure Congress set forth in those statutes. 19 It is not surprising that 

these rules are mutually reinforcing. Ultimately, both stem from the commonsense 

notion that where Congress has legislated with great care on a particular subject—

whether by establishing strict limits on the disclosure of information it considers 

highly sensitive, or by creating a specific and detailed statutory scheme—it is 

unlikely to have displaced the limits it imposed through unclear or general language.

 

18 Even if the IG Act addressed the lawful recipients of information with the same degree of 

specificity as Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626, that fact alone would not render the rule of relative 

specificity inapplicable. We have often applied the rule in comparable circumstances. See, e.g., National 

Archives Access to Taxpayer Information, 21 Op. O.L.C. at 94–95 (concluding that a specific statute 

regulating the disclosure of tax returns takes precedence over a general statute granting the Archivist of 

the United States access to the records of any federal agency); GAO Access, 12 Op. O.L.C. at 182–83 

(concluding that a “specific statute directly addressing one executive branch agency’s handling of trade 

secret information” takes precedence over a “general statute addressed to [the Comptroller General’s 

access to] all kinds of information in possession of the executive branch”).

19 Although the timing of the enactment of conflicting statutes can sometimes be relevant to their 

interpretation, see infra pp. 65–66, that timing does not affect the applicability of the principles discussed 

in the text to the statutes at issue here. This Office has thought a clear statement was necessary to permit 

access both to information protected by “long-established polic[ies]” of confidentiality, Sells, 463 U.S. 

at 424; Census Confidentiality at 8, and to information protected by statutes enacted “subsequent” to the 

competing access provision, FBI NARA Memorandum at 2. Likewise, the Supreme Court has held that 

“a more specific statute will be given precedence over a more general one, regardless of their temporal 

sequence.” Busic v. United States, 446 U.S. 398, 406 (1980). The clear statement rules we have discussed 

above thus apply equally to Rule 6(e) and Title III, which preceded section 6(a)(1), and to section 626, 

which postdated it.
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As a result, the dispositive question in resolving the conflict between section 6(a)(1) 

and these three withholding statutes is whether Congress clearly expressed an 

intention in the IG Act to grant inspectors general access to information protected 

by Rule 6(e), Title III, or section 626 notwithstanding the limits those statutes place 

on disclosure. 

B.

With these principles in mind, we now consider whether section 6(a)(1) contains 

the kind of clear statement necessary to override the withholding statutes’ 

limitations on disclosure. OIG contends that Congress intended the IG Act to grant 

it “full and prompt access to information obtained by [the Department] through the 

use of” Title III, Rule 6, and section 626. OIG 2014 Memorandum at 9. In particular, OIG argues that section 6(a)(1) grants it “affirmative and explicit authority” 

to obtain those materials, and that the IG Act’s other provisions, structure, and 

purpose indicate that that right of access is not subject to the limits imposed by those

withholding statutes. Id.; see OIG Supplemental Memorandum at 11–15. OIG’s 

arguments are substantial. We conclude, however, that the IG Act does not provide 

the kind of clear indication of congressional intent necessary to override the specific, 

carefully drawn limitations in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626.

To begin, the text of the IG Act does not contain the sort of language we have 

previously found sufficient to constitute a clear statement that Congress intends to 

override more specific statutory provisions that protect sensitive information. The 

IG Act does not mention Title III or Rule 6(e), despite having been enacted after 

these statutes. Cf. Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 272 (noting 

that “[n]othing in the language of” the general disclosure provision of the National 

Security Act “refers to Title III information,” despite having been added after 

Title III); Census Confidentiality at 6, 8 (noting that section 215 of the Patriot Act 

“contains no express and specific statement indicating an intention” to override the 

“well-established confidentiality protections set forth in the Census Act,” and 

“makes no reference to the census or the Census Act”); Rule 6(e) Intelligence 

Community, 21 Op. O.L.C. at 165 (“Neither the text of section 104(a) [of the 

National Security Act] nor its pertinent legislative history contains . . . an 

affirmative expression of intent to override grand jury secrecy restrictions.”). Nor 

does the IG Act contain general language addressing potential conflicts with other 

statutory confidentiality provisions, such as a statement that the inspector general’s 

right of access shall apply “notwithstanding any other law” or “notwithstanding any 

statutory prohibition on disclosure”—language that might, at least in some 

circumstances, provide a clearer indication that the general access language was 

supposed to override more specific statutory protections of confidential 
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information. 20 See, e.g., Brady Act Implementation Issues, 20 Op. O.L.C. 57, 62 

(1996) (concluding that a Brady Act provision permitting the Attorney General to 

obtain relevant information from any department or agency “[n]otwithstanding any 

other law” permitted access to information otherwise subject to restrictions in the 

Privacy Act); Census Confidentiality at 9 (noting that section 215 of the Patriot Act 

“contains no language” like “notwithstanding any provision of law” (internal 

quotation marks omitted)).21 Thus, while section 6(a) establishes a general right of 

access by inspectors general, it does not expressly address the relative strength of 

that right compared to other statutory restrictions on disclosure that would by their 

terms exclude access by inspectors general—let alone clearly resolve that the 

general right of access overrides the conflicting statutory provisions.

According to OIG, the IG Act’s command that agencies provide inspectors 

general with unfettered access to information is nonetheless clear. Section 6(a)(1),

OIG observes, authorizes each inspector general “to have access to all records” 

available to his agency and within his investigative jurisdiction. OIG 2014

Memorandum at 8 (emphasis added). We recognize that the word “all,” read 

literally, extends to every record available to an agency, whether protected by a 

withholding statute or not. But the Supreme Court has noted that “circumstances 

may counteract the effect of expansive modifiers” like “all” or “any,” Ali v. Fed. 

Bureau of Prisons, 552 U.S. 214, 221 n.4 (2008), particularly in circumstances 

where a clear statement rule applies. In Raygor v. Regents of University of 

Minnesota, 534 U.S. 533 (2002), for example, the Court considered whether a 

statute granting federal district courts jurisdiction to hear “all other claims” that are 

part of a case or controversy over which a district court has original jurisdiction was 

sufficiently clear to evince congressional intent to abrogate state sovereign 

immunity. The Court concluded that, despite the facial breadth of the statute, it did 

not confer jurisdiction on district courts to hear claims against states that did not 

consent to be sued. “[E]ven though nothing in the statute expressly exclude[d] such 

claims,” and the grant of jurisdiction was “facially broad” enough to cover them, 

 20 Even a grant of access that includes a “notwithstanding any other provision of law” clause might

not, in all circumstances, overcome a conflicting, detailed statutory scheme restricting the disclosure of 

information. Cf. United States v. Novak, 476 F.3d 1041, 1046 (9th Cir. 2007) (“In examining specific 

statutes, we have not . . . always accorded universal effect to the ‘notwithstanding’ language. Instead, we 

have determined the reach of each such ‘notwithstanding’ clause by taking into account the whole of the 

statutory context in which it appears.” (internal citations omitted)).

21 Statutes containing such language are not unusual. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 922(t) note 

(“Notwithstanding any other law, the Attorney General may secure directly from any department or agency 

of the United States such information . . . as is necessary to enable the [NICS] to operate in accordance with 

this section.”); 12 U.S.C. § 5226(a)(2)(C)(i) (“Notwithstanding any other provision of law . . . the 

Comptroller General shall have access, upon request, to any information, data, schedules, books, accounts, 

financial records, reports, files, electronic communications, or other papers.”); 15 U.S.C. § 78g(f)(2) 

(“Notwithstanding any other provision of law . . . the Attorney General shall provide the Commission and 

self-regulatory organizations designated by the Commission with access to all criminal history record 

information.”).
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the Court found the statutory language “insufficient to constitute a clear statement 

of an intent to abrogate state sovereign immunity.” Id. at 541–42; see also 

Blatchford v. Native Vill. of Noatak & Circle Vill., 501 U.S. 775, 786 (1991)

(concluding that 28 U.S.C. § 1362, which establishes federal jurisdiction over “all

civil actions” that satisfy the amount in controversy requirement, lacks the “clear 

legislative statement” necessary to override state sovereign immunity).

Even more directly relevant, this Office has concluded that broad, general terms 

like “all” and “any” do not provide the clear statement of congressional intent 

needed to override specific, detailed statutory limitations or prohibitions on the 

disclosure of sensitive information about which Congress has expressed a special 

concern for privacy. In our Rule 6(e) Intelligence Community opinion, for example, 

we determined that a statute much like the IG Act, which granted the Director of 

Central Intelligence “access to all intelligence related to national security,” did not 

“clearly manifest an intent to reach grand jury information.” 21 Op. O.L.C. at 165 

(emphasis added). Although we acknowledged that “the ‘intelligence’ covered by 

the statute could reasonably be interpreted to encompass certain kinds of grand jury 

information,” we thought that “[t]he most that may be said about [the statute’s] text 

in this regard is that it is unclear on the point.” Id. at 165–66. We later concluded 

that the same statute—despite the word “all”—did not authorize unrestricted 

disclosure of Title III information to the Director of Central Intelligence. See 

Title III Intelligence Community, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 272–73. And in our Census 

Confidentiality opinion, we concluded that a section of the Patriot Act authorizing 

the FBI to obtain “any tangible things . . . for an investigation to obtain foreign 

intelligence information” was not sufficiently clear to overcome the presumption of 

confidentiality for census information. Census Confidentiality at 5, 8 (emphasis 

added); see also Confidential Treatment of Census Records, 40 Op. Att’y Gen. at 

327–28 (concluding that a statute granting the Archivist of the United States the 

“authority to make regulations for the arrangement, custody, use, and withdrawal of 

material” requisitioned for deposit in the National Archives building, and repealing

“[a]ll Acts or parts” inconsistent with this authority, did not contain the “very clear 

language” necessary to abrogate the statutory provisions governing confidential 

treatment of census records (emphasis added)). Thus, the word “all,” on its own, 

does not provide the clear statement necessary to reach Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626 information.

OIG further argues that Congress’s intent to grant it access to statutorily 

protected information under section 6(a)(1) is made apparent by a negative 

implication from sections 6(a)(3) and 6(b)(1) of the IG Act. Whereas section 6(a)(1) 

grants inspectors general access to materials within the agencies they help oversee, 

section 6(a)(3) of the Act authorizes them to “request . . . information or 

assistance . . . from any Federal, State, or local governmental agency or unit 

thereof.” 5 U.S.C. app. § 6(a)(3) (emphasis added). Section 6(b)(1) qualifies this 

latter authorization by providing:
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Upon request of an Inspector General for information or assistance 

under subsection (a)(3), the head of any Federal agency involved 

shall, insofar as is practicable and not in contravention of any existing 

statutory restriction or regulation of the Federal agency from which 

the information is requested, furnish to such Inspector General, or to 

an authorized designee, such information or assistance.

Id. § 6(b)(1) (emphasis added). Section 6(b)(1) thus makes explicit that the 

obligation of another agency to respond to an inspector general’s request for 

information under section 6(a)(3) is subject to, among other things, “existing 

statutory restriction[s].” But neither section 6(b)(1) nor any other provision in 

section 6 imposes a similarly express limitation on the right of access under 

section 6(a)(1). OIG argues that this omission was intentional, and coupled with the 

inclusion of the express limitation in section 6(b)(1), implies that Congress intended 

access under section 6(a)(1) to be “automatic” and free of any “existing statutory 

restriction[s].” OIG Supplemental Memorandum at 12–13.

OIG’s argument is “admittedly a plausible one,” Sells, 463 U.S. at 435, and in a 

different interpretive context, it might prevail. But as we have discussed, before 

concluding that a general access provision abrogates detailed, specific statutory 

provisions that restrict disclosure of sensitive information, both this Office and the 

courts have required a clear and express statement to that effect. And despite its 

plausibility, the inference OIG would draw from section 6(b)(1) is simply that: an 

inference. It is not a clear statement that plainly and unambiguously indicates that 

Congress intended the general access provision in section 6(a)(1) to trump more 

specific provisions that protect highly sensitive information. See, e.g., FernandezVargas v. Gonzalez, 548 U.S. 30, 41 (2006) (stating that a “negative inference” from 

the absence of express language, found elsewhere in the same statute, that a 

particular provision was intended to apply only prospectively would not constitute 

a “clear statement” of intent to apply the provision retroactively).

Moreover, even if a negative inference could, in some circumstances, be 

unequivocal enough to establish a clear manifestation of congressional intent, the 

inference OIG invokes would not in our view satisfy that high standard. For one 

thing, the inference “‘that the presence of a phrase in one provision and its absence 

in another reveals Congress’s design . . . grows weaker with each difference in the 

formulation of the provisions under inspection.’” Clay v. United States, 537 U.S. 

522, 532 (2003) (quoting City of Columbus v. Ours Garage & Wrecker Serv., Inc., 

536 U.S. 424, 435–36 (2002)). And here, section 6(b)(1) differs from section 6(a)(1) 

in at least two significant ways. First, section 6(b)(1) is structured as an adjunct to a 

separate provision, section 6(a)(3), that allows an inspector general to “request” 

particular items from an agency other than his own. Because section 6(a)(3) 

establishes only an inspector general’s right to request materials from outside his 

agency, Congress required an additional provision, section 6(b)(1), to specify the 

scope of other agencies’ obligations to “furnish” the requested material to an 
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inspector general. Section 6(a)(1), in contrast, is not part of a similar bifurcated 

structure, but rather—by giving an inspector general a right of “access” to certain 

materials—establishes both an inspector general’s right to receive and, by 

implication, the agency’s obligation to provide relevant material. Thus, unlike in the 

case of section 6(a)(3), Congress had no need to say anything in subsection (b)(1) 

about the scope of an agency’s obligation to comply with an inspector general’s 

attempt to obtain materials under section 6(a)(1). See Ours Garage, 536 U.S. at 434 

(concluding that, because of significant differences in the formulation of certain 

related statutory provisions, any negative inference arising from the inclusion in one 

provision of a phrase omitted from the other was insufficient to constitute a “clear 

and manifest indication” of congressional intent).

Second, as the text of section 6(b)(1) makes clear, Congress chose to impose 

several limitations on an inspector general’s right to obtain information from outside 

his agency, including that outside agencies need only provide the requested 

information “insofar as is practicable” and to the extent permitted by “existing . . .

regulation[s].” 5 U.S.C. app. § 6(b)(1). Those limitations, because they do not 

themselves have a statutory basis, would not obviously have applied unless 

Congress imposed them expressly. But having done so, Congress may have felt 

compelled to add “existing statutory restriction[s]” to the list of limitations in order 

to dispel any inference that it did not intend those restrictions to apply as well. In 

contrast, Congress chose not to make an inspector general’s right of access under 

section 6(a)(1) subject to any similar restrictions with a non-statutory source. It 

therefore had no similar need to expressly refer to “existing statutory restriction[s]” 

when drafting that provision. See Gomez-Perez v. Potter, 553 U.S. 474, 486–88 

(2008) (declining to draw a negative inference from the omission of an express 

prohibition on retaliation in one section of the Age Discrimination in Employment 

Act and its inclusion in another, where the second section set out “a specific list of 

forbidden employer practices,” and the inclusion of retaliation among them may 

have been necessary to “dispel any . . . inference” that “Congress did not want to 

reach retaliation”).

OIG’s inference is further clouded by the text of section 6(b)(2) of the IG Act, 

which provides that an inspector general shall report to Congress if “information or 

assistance requested under subsection (a)(1) or (a)(3) is, in the judgment of [the] 

Inspector General, unreasonably refused or not provided.” 5 U.S.C. app. § 6(b)(2) 

(emphasis added). This subsection suggests that it is possible to “reasonably” refuse 

to grant an inspector general access to materials under subsection (a)(1). And if 

access can “reasonably” be refused under subsection (a)(1), then that provision 

cannot provide the unfettered and absolute right to information asserted by OIG. To 

be sure, it is also possible to read subsection (b)(2) to mean that any information 

refused under subsection (a)(1) is necessarily refused “unreasonably,” given the 

broad right of access provided by that subsection. But subsection (b)(2) is not clear 

on this point, and it can be read to suggest that subsection (a)(1) has an implicit 
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exception, consistent with the principles of statutory interpretation discussed above, 

for specific statutory schemes protecting highly sensitive information.

Read together, then, we do not believe the various provisions of section 6 contain 

the kind of clear statement necessary to overcome the carefully drawn limitations 

on disclosure of highly sensitive information found in Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626. And to the extent that those provisions create any ambiguity, the IG 

Act’s legislative history affirmatively suggests that Congress intended to subject 

inspector general access under section 6(a)(1) to applicable statutory restrictions. In 

particular, the Senate Report accompanying the IG Act flatly states that section 6(a) 

is “a broad mandate permitting the Inspector . . . General the access he needs to do 

an effective job subject, of course, to the provisions of other statutes, such as the 

Privacy Act.” S. Rep. No. 95-1071, at 33–34 (1978) (emphasis added). In addition, 

a version of the bill initially passed by the House of Representatives would have 

expressly granted inspectors general access to records notwithstanding certain 

limitations of the Privacy Act (a clarification that would, incidentally, have been 

superfluous had the House believed that section 6(a)(1) already exempted inspectors 

general from all statutory limits on disclosure). See H.R. 8588, 95th Cong., § 5(b)(3) 

(as passed by the House of Representatives, April 18, 1978).

22 The Senate removed 

that provision from the final version of the bill because, the Senate Committee 

Report explained, the House’s language would have granted inspectors general “a 

power that no other official of the executive branch has—the authority to require 

the transfer of personal information from any agency . . . without regard for the 

protections of the Privacy Act.” S. Rep. No. 95-1071, at 13. Removing the 

provision, the Report stated, “does not mean that an Inspector . . . General will be 

unable to obtain needed information to perform his responsibilities. It simply means 

that the information must be obtained in conformity with the exemptions and 

procedures of the [Privacy Act].” Id. (emphasis added). The Report explained that 

this would not be difficult, because “all information within the agency would be 

available to the Inspector . . . General, based on the ‘intra-agency’ exemption” 

included in the Privacy Act itself. Id. (emphasis added). This language strongly 

suggests that, at least in the Committee’s view, inspectors general would remain 

subject to other statutory requirements, including statutory restrictions on use and 

disclosure, when seeking access under section 6(a)(1), and further undermines the 

 

22 This draft provided: “In the event any record or other information requested by the Inspector 

General under subsection (a)(1) or (a)(3) is not considered to be available under the provisions of section 

552a(b) (1), (3), or (7) of title 5, United States Code, such record or information shall be available to the 

Inspector General in the same manner and to the same extent it would be available to the Comptroller 

General.” H.R. 8588, § 5(b)(3). The “subsection[s] (a)(1) [and] (a)(3)” referred to in this provision of the 

House bill are identical to those currently found at subsections 6(a)(1) and (a)(3) of the IG Act as enacted. 

Compare id. § 5(a)(1), (3) with 5 U.S.C. app. § 6(a)(1), (3). Title 5, section 552a is the Privacy Act, 

which (then as now) expressly exempted the Comptroller General from the Privacy Act’s general 

prohibition on the disclosure of covered information. See 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b)(10). 
Department of Justice Inspector General’s Access to Information

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notion that Congress intended to grant access to Rule 6(e), Title III, and section 626 

information without regard to the limitations set forth in those statutes. 23

OIG also invokes a later-enacted IG Act provision specific to the Department—

current section 8E—to support its reading of section 6(a)(1). As we have noted, this 

section, among other things, authorizes the Attorney General to withhold records from 

OIG, or otherwise direct and supervise an OIG investigation, if she determines that 

doing so would be “necessary to prevent the disclosure of” certain sensitive 

information—such as “sensitive information concerning . . . ongoing civil or criminal 

investigations” or “the identity of confidential sources”—“or to prevent the significant 

impairment to the national interests of the United States.” 5 U.S.C. app. § 8E(a)(1),

(2). It further provides that if the Attorney General exercises such authority, she must 

“notify the Inspector General in writing stating the reasons for such exercise,” and that 

OIG must transmit a copy of that notice to appropriate committees in Congress. Id. 

§ 8E(a)(3). OIG argues that the “exacting procedures” imposed by this provision, as 

well as its historically “infrequent use,” confirm that section 8E represents an 

“extraordinary departure from the baseline rule, established by section 6, that the 

Inspectors General enjoy access to documents and materials,” and demonstrates that 

only in the specific circumstances set out in section 8E may the Attorney General 

withhold requested records. OIG Supplemental Memorandum at 18; see OIG 2014 

Memorandum at 8–9.

We disagree. For one thing, section 6(a)(1) was enacted in 1978 as part of the 

original IG Act, while section 8E, like the special provisions applicable to other 

departments and agencies, was added to the statute years later.24 The negative 

inference that OIG seeks to draw from the inclusion of certain heightened procedures 

in section 8E is therefore attenuated. See Gomez-Perez, 553 U.S. at 486 (“‘[N]egative 

 

23 OIG responds to this argument by contending that “the phrase ‘subject . . . to’” in the Senate Report 

“does not necessarily mean that [an inspector general’s] right of access to documents and materials is 

restricted by general statutory or regulatory limitations on the disclosure of those materials; it is just as 

plausible to read ‘subject . . . to’ to mean that, when using the materials they access, the IGs are not 

exempt from any statutory and regulatory limitations on disclosure.” OIG Supplemental Memorandum 

at 15. But the quoted passage from the Senate Report is not addressed to an inspector general’s use of 

information; rather, it specifically addresses access to information, and is contained in a section of the

Senate Report discussing the right of access provided by section 6(a). See S. Rep. No. 95-1071, at 33–

34. Moreover, the Report separately makes the same point when discussing limitations on disclosure.

See id. at 32 (“[T]he Inspector . . . General must adhere to statutes such as 26 U.S.C. § 6013 [sic], dealing 

with tax returns, or Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e), dealing with grand jury information, which 

prohibit disclosure even to Congress.”). In addition, OIG’s argument does not address the Report’s multipage discussion of the Privacy Act exception and the effect of its omission from the bill that ultimately 

became the IG Act.

24 In addition to section 8E, which applies to the Department, sections 8 through 8I of the IG Act 

contain special provisions relating to the Department of Defense (section 8), the Agency for International 

Development (section 8A), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (section 8B), the Federal Deposit 

Insurance Corporation (section 8C), the Department of the Treasury (section 8D), the Corporation for 

National and Community Service (section 8F), certain federal entities (section 8G), Inspectors General 

of the Intelligence Community (section 8H), and the Department of Homeland Security (section 8I). See 

5 U.S.C. app. §§ 8–8I.
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implications raised by disparate provisions are strongest’ in those instances in which 

the relevant statutory provisions were ‘considered simultaneously when the language 

raising the implication was inserted.’” (alteration in original) (quoting Lindh v. 

Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 330 (1997))). In any event, that inference is unconvincing on 

its own terms. Section 8E does not authorize the Attorney General to withhold only 

those records protected from disclosure by statute. Indeed, many of the records that 

the Attorney General may withhold under that section are not entitled to protection 

under any statute. For example, “information concerning . . . ongoing civil or criminal 

investigations” or “the identity of confidential sources,” 5 U.S.C. app. § 8E(a)(1)(A), 

(C), would be protected by Rule 6(e) only if the investigation were criminal and had 

reached the grand jury stage. Conversely, much information that is protected by statute 

may not be subject to withholding under section 8E, such as Title III information that 

is not pertinent to an ongoing civil or criminal investigation or any other sensitive 

matter described in that section. Section 8E thus does not merely duplicate the 

protections afforded by Title III, Rule 6(e), or section 626; it grants the Attorney 

General authority over disclosures that is in some respects broader, and in some 

respects narrower, than the requirements of those provisions, and thus serves a distinct 

purpose.

Finally, in addition to these arguments based on the Act’s text and structure, OIG 

appeals to the general purposes of the IG Act. This statute was intended, OIG 

explains, to grant inspectors general a broad right of access to agency materials, 

including records containing sensitive information, so that they could conduct 

meaningful reviews of programs within their jurisdiction. See OIG Supplemental 

Memorandum at 12, 14–15. OIG points out, for instance, that the Act’s Senate 

Report characterizes section 6(a) as a “broad mandate” and describes such access as 

“obviously crucial.” Id. at 16 (quoting S. Rep. No. 95-1071, at 33–34); see also,

e.g., H.R. Rep. No. 95-584, at 14 (1977) (stating that the access provision “makes 

clear that each Inspector General is to have access to all records, documents, et 

cetera, available to his or her agency which relate to programs and operations with 

respect to which the office has responsibilities”). OIG argues that this goal would 

be undermined by a construction of the statute that prohibited it from obtaining 

materials protected by Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626.

We agree that Congress intended to grant each inspector general a broad right of 

access, and we do not doubt that such a right of access is crucial to enabling OIG to 

fulfill its statutory mission. But this kind of general congressional intent does not 

resolve the specific question at issue here: whether Congress clearly expressed an 

intention that the inspector general’s “broad mandate” in section 6(a)(1) supersede the 

limits on disclosure contained in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626. As we have 

noted, the IG Act’s text contains no such expression of intent, and the Act’s legislative 

history affirmatively indicates that Congress did not intend to grant that kind of 

unlimited access to inspectors general. Moreover, in the same Report in which the 

Senate Committee described the “broad mandate” found in section 6(a)(1)—indeed, 

in the same sentence—it also stated that an inspector general’s access would be 
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“subject, of course, to the provisions of other statutes, such as the Privacy Act.”

S. Rep. No. 95-1071, at 33–34; see also id. at 13–14.25 It thus appears Congress did 

not believe (let alone clearly indicate) that the broad right of access it was giving each 

inspector general was inconsistent with requiring compliance with specific statutory 

regimes that protect highly sensitive information.

In sum, neither the text of the IG Act, nor its legislative history, nor its general 

purpose offers a clear indication that Congress intended to override the separate 

statutory confidentiality requirements applicable to Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626 information. As a result, under both the principle requiring that a statute 

contain a clear statement in order to abrogate protections of highly sensitive 

information, and the rule of relative specificity, OIG remains subject to the 

limitations imposed by Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626. The Department 

therefore may not disclose information covered by those statutes except in 

accordance with their provisions.26

IV.

We have also considered whether a recent appropriations rider grants OIG access 

to information it could otherwise not obtain under Title III, Rule 6(e), or 

section 626. Section 218 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing 

Appropriations Act, 2015, Pub. L. No. 113-235, 128 Stat. 2130, 2200 (Dec. 16, 

2014), provides:

No funds provided in this Act shall be used to deny the Inspector 

General of the Department of Justice timely access to all records, 

documents, and other materials in the custody or possession of the 

Department or to prevent or impede the Inspector General’s access to 

such records, documents and other materials, unless in accordance 

with an express limitation of section 6(a) of the Inspector General Act, 

 

25 The full passage reads: 

Access to all relevant documents available to the applicable [agency] relating to 

programs and operations for which the Inspector and Auditor General has 

responsibilities is obviously crucial. The committee intends this subsection to be a broad 

mandate permitting the Inspector and Auditor General the access he needs to do an 

effective job, subject, of course, to the provisions of other statutes, such as the Privacy 

Act. 

S. Rep. No. 95-1071, at 33–34.

26 We express no view about whether inspectors general have a right to obtain information protected 

from disclosure by provisions other than Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626. Resolution of that issue 

would depend on whether those other statutes protected highly sensitive information about which 

Congress has “expressed a strong congressional intent to maintain very strict privacy,” FBI NARA 

Memorandum at 1–2, whether those statutes regulated the treatment of covered information with greater 

specificity than the IG Act, and whether the IG Act or some other relevant statute contained a clear 

statement authorizing disclosure of the information to inspectors general.
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62

as amended, consistent with the plain language of the Inspector 

General Act, as amended. The Inspector General of the Department of 

Justice shall report to the Committees on Appropriations within five 

calendar days any failures to comply with this requirement.

This rider permits the Department to expend Fiscal Year 2015 funds to withhold 

records from OIG only where doing so would be “in accordance with an express 

limitation of section 6(a) of” the IG Act, “consistent with the plain language of” that 

Act. It also imposes two other legal requirements for the remainder of Fiscal Year 

2015 that are not already expressly set forth in the IG Act. First, it bars the 

Department from using appropriated funds to deny—and so effectively obligates 

the Department to grant—OIG access to records in a “timely” manner, a matter on 

which the text of the IG Act is silent. And, second, it imposes on OIG an obligation 

to report failures to comply with these requirements to the congressional 

appropriations committees within five calendar days. Obligation or expenditure of 

funds contrary to the terms of the rider would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, 

31 U.S.C. §§ 1341 et seq., a statute that subjects federal officials obligating or 

expending funds in advance or in excess of appropriations to administrative 

penalties, and to criminal penalties in the case of knowing and willful violations, id. 

§§ 1341(a), 1349(a), 1350.

OIG contends that, for two independent reasons, section 218 affirms its right to 

obtain Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 information notwithstanding the disclosure 

limitations in those statutes. First, according to OIG, section 218 reflects a 

congressional understanding that section 6(a)(1) of the IG Act requires the 

Department to disclose all relevant materials to OIG. “The passage of [section 218],” 

OIG argues, “serves as a reaffirmation of clear congressional intent, originally 

manifested in section 6(a) . . . that the OIG is entitled to access to ‘all records, reports, 

audits, reviews, documents, papers, recommendations, or other material available to’ 

the Department.” OIG 2015 E-mail; see OIG 2014 Memorandum at 4. Second, 

regardless of the correct interpretation of section 6(a)(1), OIG argues that section 218 

independently and “unequivocal[ly]” requires the Department to disclose to OIG all 

information it requests, unless the Department withholds that information pursuant to 

a provision, such as section 8E, that expressly limits the right of access granted by the 

IG Act. OIG 2015 E-mail; see The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector 

General’s Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Request: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on 

Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies of the H. Comm. on Appropriations, 114th Cong. 9–10 (2015) (statement of Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector 

General, Dep’t of Justice). Because neither Title III nor Rule 6(e) nor section 626 

expressly addresses disclosures under the IG Act, the rider (in OIG’s view) prohibits 

the Department from expending Fiscal Year 2015 appropriated funds to withhold 

Title III, Rule 6(e), or section 626 materials from OIG. See OIG 2015 E-mail.

Although OIG’s arguments are again substantial, we ultimately disagree that 

section 218 grants OIG access to information otherwise protected by Title III, 
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Rule 6(e), and section 626. With respect to OIG’s first argument, we have already 

concluded, for the reasons set forth in Part III above, that the IG Act lacks the clear 

statement of congressional intent necessary to override the detailed and specific 

statutory disclosure prohibitions set forth in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626. In 

order to alter this conclusion about the IG Act’s meaning, section 218 would need 

to contain a clear statement indicating that section 6(a)(1) should be interpreted to 

override those statutory limitations on disclosure. But it is not clear that section 218 

contains any instruction about how the IG Act should be interpreted: it does not 

expressly declare the Act’s meaning, amend the Act to clarify its terms, or depend 

for its effectiveness on a particular interpretation of the IG Act. See AlmendarezTorres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 237 (1998) (concluding that a later-enacted 

law that lacks these features, or any other “forward looking legislative mandate, 

guidance, or direct suggestion about how [to] interpret [an] earlier provision[],” is 

“beside the point” in interpreting that provision). It is possible that Congress 

intended—by providing that the Department may not expend Fiscal Year 2015 

funds to withhold information from OIG “unless in accordance with an express 

limitation of section 6(a) of the [IG Act], consistent with the plain language of the 

[Act]”—to convey its understanding of what the “plain language” of the IG Act 

means. But this inference, itself far from clear, would merely raise the question of 

what qualifies as “an express limitation of section 6(a),” a phrase that is in turn 

subject to various interpretations. See infra pp. 63–65. Given these multiple layers 

of uncertainty, section 218 does not provide a clear statement that the IG Act should 

be interpreted to override the limitations on disclosure contained in Title III, 

Rule 6(e), and section 626.

We also disagree that, considered on its own, the rider contains a clear statement 

of Congress’s intent to override those limitations on disclosure. As noted above, 

section 218 permits Department officials to deny materials to OIG “in accordance 

with an express limitation of section 6(a) of the Inspector General Act, as amended, 

consistent with the plain language of the [Act], as amended.” In our view, there are 

at least three conceivable constructions of the phrase “express limitation of 

section 6(a) of the Inspector General Act.” First, it could be interpreted to 

encompass only those limitations on disclosure that either appear in section 6(a) 

itself or that expressly refer to that section. Second, it could be interpreted to 

encompass only those limitations on disclosure that are specifically directed at 

disclosures to OIG under the IG Act, whether or not they explicitly refer to 

section 6(a). Third, it could be interpreted to encompass all “express” limitations on 

disclosure that, when considered in conjunction with section 6(a), are properly 

deemed to function as “limitation[s] of section 6(a).” For the reasons discussed 

below, we believe that the first interpretation is not plausible, but that the second 

and third interpretations are. And because the third interpretation would allow the 

Department to continue to withhold materials from OIG to the extent required under 

the terms of Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626, section 218 does not in our view 
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constitute the sort of clear statement of congressional intent necessary to override 

those nondisclosure provisions. 

Under the first potential interpretation of the rider, Department officials would 

be prohibited from denying OIG access to documents and other materials except 

pursuant to a “limitation of section 6(a)” that “express[ly]” referred to (or was 

contained in) section 6(a) itself. This is a natural reading of section 218’s text.

However, if this reading were correct, section 218 would prohibit Department 

officials from withholding records from OIG not only under Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626, but also under section 8E of the IG Act: while section 8E plainly 

authorizes the withholding of certain records otherwise accessible under 

section 6(a), it does not refer explicitly to section 6(a). Section 218 does not 

expressly state that it was intended to partially repeal section 8E of the IG Act, and 

in our view, it is implausible to construe it as having done so implicitly. See infra

pp. 65–66 (discussing strong presumption against implied repeals in appropriations 

acts). Moreover, such a reading would be inconsistent, rather than “consistent,” with 

the “plain language of” other parts of the IG Act, and thus would fail to make sense 

of section 218 as a whole. See, e.g., Food & Drug Admin. v. Brown & Williamson 

Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 133 (2000) (“A court must . . . interpret the statute as 

a symmetrical and coherent regulatory scheme and fit, if possible, all parts into an 

harmonious whole.” (internal citations and quotation marks omitted)). It is thus 

unsurprising that OIG does not advance this reading. See OIG 2015 E-mail (stating 

that section 8E is an “express limitation” within the meaning of section 218).

Under the second potential interpretation, an “express limitation of section 6(a)” 

would be one that expressly referred to disclosures to OIG, although not specifically 

to section 6(a). On this reading, Department officials could withhold information 

under section 8E, which expressly addresses disclosures to OIG. See 5 U.S.C. app. 

§ 8E. But they would be foreclosed from withholding information from OIG 

pursuant to Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626, because these provisions contain 

no express reference to OIG. This is not the most natural reading of section 218’s 

text: the phrase “in accordance with an express limitation of section 6(a) of the [IG 

Act]” is not easily read to mean “in accordance with a limitation that expressly 

addresses disclosures to OIG under the IG Act.” Nonetheless, given that section 6(a) 

is the principal provision in the IG Act that governs disclosures to OIG, we believe 

this reading is permissible. Further, while the Explanatory Statement and Senate 

Report accompanying section 218 do not specifically endorse this interpretation, it 

arguably gains plausibility from the fact that, as OIG observes, the Department’s 

Inspector General testified before the relevant Senate appropriations subcommittee

several months before the rider was enacted, objecting to the Department’s failure 

to grant OIG direct access to materials protected by Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626. See The Department of Justice’s Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Request: 

Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies 

of the S. Comm. on Appropriations, 113th Cong. 7–8 (Apr. 3, 2014) (statement of 

Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General, Dep’t of Justice). But see Regan v. Wald, 
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65

468 U.S. 222, 237 (1984) (expressing “grave doubts” about the interpretive value 

of “[o]ral testimony of witnesses and individual Congressmen, unless very precisely 

directed to the intended meaning of particular words in a statute”).

Under the third potential interpretation of the rider, an “express limitation of 

section 6(a)” would include any explicit statutory nondisclosure provision that, 

properly construed, operated to prevent disclosure of material that OIG could 

otherwise obtain under section 6(a). This reading of section 218 would permit 

withholding not only pursuant to section 8E, but also pursuant to Title III, Rule 6(e), 

and section 626. The reading is reasonably grounded in statutory text. Statutes like 

Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 can be considered “limitations of section 6(a)” 

in that they supersede section 6(a) in situations where both section 6(a) and one of 

those statutes would apply. See supra Part III.B. They can be considered “express” 

limitations, in that they explicitly contemplate, in statutory text, nondisclosure in 

the circumstances they address. And for the reasons we have explained above, 

reading these statutory provisions to limit disclosures under section 6(a)(1) is 

“consistent with the plain language of” the IG Act, as construed using standard tools 

of statutory interpretation. See supra Part III.B.

In our view, although both the second and third interpretations of section 218 are 

plausible, the third is more appropriate in light of the relevant principles of statutory 

interpretation. As discussed in Part III above, in order to override the specific 

withholding provisions in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626, section 218 would 

need to contain a clear congressional statement that it was intended to have that 

effect. OIG appears to contend that the phrase “unless in accordance with an express 

limitation of section 6(a) of the [IG Act], consistent with the plain language of the 

[Act],” clearly means that all materials must be disclosed to OIG absent express 

language establishing that the materials need not be turned over. But as we have 

discussed, this interpretation requires reading unstated limitations into the rider’s 

text, since (as OIG concedes) section 218’s reference to an “express limitation of 

section 6(a)” encompasses section 8E, a limitation that does not expressly refer to 

section 6(a). Moreover, as was also noted above, this phrase may plausibly be read 

to permit Department officials to withhold Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 

information if OIG does not qualify to receive it under one of those statutes’ 

exemptions. Because the phrase is susceptible to alternative interpretations, one of 

which would permit withholding under Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626, it does 

not constitute a sufficiently clear statement to override the limitations on disclosure 

imposed by those statutes. See supra Part III.

Furthermore, it is significant that section 218 appears in an appropriations act 

that post-dates the provisions in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626 of FCRA. The 

Supreme Court has long held that a later statute will not be read to repeal an earlier 

one, even in part, unless Congress’s intent to repeal the earlier statute with the later 

one is “clear and manifest.” Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 

551 U.S. 644, 662–63 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Tenn. Valley 

Auth. v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 189 (1978) (refusing to read an appropriations act as 
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overriding the Endangered Species Act “insofar as it applies to the Tellico Project” 

absent “‘clear and manifest’” evidence); Posadas v. Nat'l City Bank of New York, 

296 U.S. 497, 501, 504 (1936) (declining to read a statute as overriding the Federal 

Reserve Act of 1913 “in so far as the Philippine Islands are concerned” unless such 

a reading was a “necessary” implication). This principle applies “with even greater 

force when the claimed repeal rests solely on an Appropriations Act,” because 

“legislators are entitled to operate under the assumption that the funds will be 

devoted to purposes which are lawful and not for any purpose forbidden,” and 

because Congress’s own rules “expressly prohibit[]” substantive changes to existing 

law in appropriations bills. Hill, 437 U.S. at 190–91 (emphasis in original); see 

Rules of the House of Representatives, 114th Cong., R. XXI(2)(b) (2011) (“A 

provision changing existing law may not be reported in a general appropriation 

bill . . . .”). Accordingly, there is a “very strong presumption” that appropriations 

measures do not “amend substantive law,” a presumption that may be overcome 

only by “unambiguous[]” evidence to the contrary. Calloway v. Dist. of Columbia, 

216 F.3d 1, 9 (D.C. Cir. 2000).

We do not believe this presumption is overcome with respect to section 218. The 

rider’s text does not mention Title III, Rule 6(e), or section 626, nor does it state 

that the provision is intended to amend existing statutes in any way. Cf. Am. Fed’n 

of Gov’t Emp., AFL-CIO v. Campbell, 659 F.2d 157, 161 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (finding 

implied repeal where an appropriations act made an “express reference to the earlier 

statute”). As far as we are aware, the only statements in the legislative history 

concerning the rider explain that it “is designed to improve OIG access to 

Department documents and information,” 160 Cong. Rec. H9345 (daily ed. Dec. 11, 

2014) (explanatory statement submitted by Rep. Rogers), and that it “requires the 

Department to provide documents to the Inspector General that are necessary as part 

of audits and investigations,” S. Rep. No. 113-181, at 103 (2014). But both these 

goals would be advanced by all the readings we have discussed, including the 

reading under which section 218 does not implicitly repeal Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626. Cf. Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union v. Devine, 733 F.2d 114, 120 (D.C. 

Cir. 1984) (finding implied repeal of personnel regulations where “Congress 

expressly stated [in the legislative history] that it wished to prevent the effectuation” 

of the policies set forth in those regulations). Although interpreting section 218 to 

permit the Department to withhold materials under the provisions of Title III, 

Rule 6(e), and section 626 would not expand the scope of records available to OIG, 

it would help ensure that the Department complied with the terms of the IG Act by 

requiring it to grant OIG access in a “timely” manner; by obligating OIG to promptly

report incidents of noncompliance to the appropriations committees; and by adding 

the possibility of Anti-Deficiency Act consequences for failure to comply. On this 

interpretation, the purpose of section 218 would be to reaffirm and reinforce the 

existing disclosure requirements in the IG Act.

We acknowledge that OIG’s broader reading of the rider is also plausible, and 

consonant with events surrounding its enactment. But the presumption against 
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implied repeals requires not just that a reading constituting an implied repeal be 

more natural, or that it draw support from comments in the legislative record, but 

that it be “unambiguous[],” Calloway, 216 F.3d at 9; “clear and manifest,” Nat’l 

Ass’n of Home Builders, 551 U.S. at 662 (internal quotation marks omitted); or 

“necessary,” Posadas, 296 U.S. at 504. As we have explained, because section 218 

can also reasonably be read to permit the Department to continue to abide by the 

“express limitations” on disclosure in Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626, OIG’s 

interpretation is not compelled by the text; hence, the rider does not offer 

“unambiguous” evidence that Congress intended to partially repeal existing 

statutory prohibitions on disclosure. Calloway, 216 F.3d at 9. In light of the “very 

strong” presumption against implied repeals in appropriations acts, id., and the other 

interpretive principles we have identified, we believe section 218 is best read to 

permit adherence to the disclosure restrictions in Title III, Rule 6(e), and 

section 626. 

V.

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Title III, Rule 6(e), and section 626

permit the Department to disclose certain statutorily protected information to OIG 

in certain circumstances. We further conclude that to the extent those statutes 

prohibit disclosure of such information, neither the IG Act nor section 218 permits 

the Department to disclose it.

KARL R. THOMPSON

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Office of Legal Counsel