I saw her on TV last night and she is claiming that no such AGO was written during her 12 years. Is it possible that the Sec of State memo was written in 1996 and cited an AGO from pre-1992?
No.
In an interview yesterday morning, SecState Sam Reed stated that the SecState in 1996 probably had the opinion laying around from a previous AG, but the standard practice is to take that old opinion, run it by the AG's office to see if it is still valid (i.e. the laws havn't changed etc...) then release the opinion if there are no changes, or release the new opinion...
So the bottom line is that the opinion DID get reviewed by the AG's office in 1996 - whether Gregoire saw it personally is irrelevant. She was the AG at the time and is responsible for her office and underlings. Of course, she's been ducking responsiblity in her office for years, so...