Obama Admin Drafted Memos on Trillion-Dollar Coin During Debt Ceiling Showdown

Fans of economic policy may recall that during one of the many recent debt ceiling showdowns, the idea to mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin came to the fore. It turns out that the Obama administration took the idea seriously enough to have the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel draft memos pertaining to its legality, a fact belied by the White House’s out-of-hand dismissal of the option in January.

In response to the Huffington Post’s Freedom of Information Act request, the OLC confirmed that memos about the legality of minting a high-value platinum coin had been written since Obama took office, but declared them “not appropriate for discretionary release.” HuffPost filed the FOIA request during this fall’s debt ceiling battle.

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