On August 10-11, 2026, days after Todd Blanche was confirmed as attorney general, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel published an opinion greatly expanding the reach of executive privilege. First reported by Punchbowl News, the memo concludes that the privilege can cover the president's communications with his “private advisers,” including private citizens outside the White House, so long as the communications “relate to official presidential decisionmaking, involve or reflect communications with the President or his direct advisers, and are confidential.”
It is the first time the department has explicitly extended executive privilege to people outside the government, a significant expansion of a protection the Supreme Court has recognized only in narrower terms. The opinion, authored by OLC head Elliot Gaiser, is likely to draw a legal challenge, and it remains unclear whether courts will accept the broadened definition.
The practical effect is to make it harder for Congress to compel testimony or documents about the president's dealings, a shield that matters most if Democrats win the House and open investigations. Critics noted the timing: the opinion landed just after Blanche won confirmation 50-49 in part by assuring Republican holdouts he would preserve the department's independence (see The DOJ Announces a $1.776 Billion 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' to Compensate Trump's Allies, Settling the President's $10 Billion Lawsuit Against the IRS He Controls).
The timing is tighter than it first appeared. Blanche was sworn in on Monday, August 10, with the oath administered by Emil Bove, another of Trump's former attorneys and now a federal appeals judge. The OLC memo was published that same evening.
The Senate had confirmed him by the narrowest of margins after a bruising fight, and reporting identifies Sens. Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis among the Republicans who voted yes after receiving his assurances about limits on presidential immunity and the department's independence. His first substantive act as attorney general was to publish a memo extending a legal protection to the president who had appointed him, and who had previously been his private client.