On Monday, August 12th, 2026, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) released a memo extending the president's "executive privilege" to include confidentiality over White House communications with private advisers. According to the memo, the White House may withhold "communications with private advisers so long as the communications relate to official presidential decisionmaking, involve or reflect communications with the President or his direct advisers."

This new policy is expected to hinder congressional Democrats' efforts to investigate the White House if they regain control of the House in the 2026 midterm elections, where they are currently favored to win.

The memo has raised alarms among government watchdog and transparency groups. Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), criticized the move, stating, "This is the latest attempt by this administration to reduce transparency. The executive branch has cut resources that ensure public access to government information and taken down information from public websites. It has claimed that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional."

The OLC defended the policy by arguing that limiting executive privilege to only intragovernmental communications would restrict the president's ability to rely on a broad range of advice necessary for fulfilling presidential responsibilities. "Such an outcome not only would impair the President's Article II functions, but ultimately would harm the public itself," the opinion said.

Historically, the Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that former presidents retain some right to invoke executive privilege. However, attempts by Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton to assert executive privilege during the Watergate and Monica Lewinsky scandals were rejected by federal courts, which determined that executive privilege does not provide blanket protection against investigations into Oval Office activities.

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