President Donald Trump has the right to block the release of “sensitive” communications that he has with private advisers and citizens under the banner of “executive privilege,” the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) argued.In a 21-page memo published on Monday, the OLC advised the White House that the president has the legal right to withhold documents or information from the federal government’s Legislative or Judicial Branch.“Executive privilege can apply to presidential 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, and are confidential,” states the opinion, first flagged on Tuesday by Punchbowl News.A giant portrait of President Donald Trump looks down from the Justice Department in Washington.via Associated PressThe memo is attributed to Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser.A DOJ official, in a statement to HuffPost, argued its veracity by comparing it to a similar one made by President George W. Bush’s attorney general in 2007.“While the issue has not been litigated frequently, the Opinion reaffirms the longstanding position of the office going back at least as far as Paul Clement in 2007 and arguably as far back as 1972,” the official said.Jonathan Shaub, a University of Kentucky law professor and former OLC attorney, told Axios on Tuesday that the legal move “could be a pretty significant weapon” if accepted by the general public and courts.It could be used “to deflect a lot of that congressional investigation of private parties,” he said.The opinion, which is not binding, comes ahead of Democrats’ expressed plans to investigate Trump’s backdoor financial dealings should they take back the House in November’s midterm elections.“Donald Trump is scared. He knows accountability is coming,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in response to the memo. “These are the actions of someone with something to hide. And it shows he is petrified of the questions a Democratic Congress will demand answers to.”House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) earlier this summer also warned a room of Christian conservatives that Trump’s allies, friends and family will be deeply picked through should Republicans lose this fall.“They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors and friends,” he said.