The lesson of Iran-Contra: Cover-ups can work

We'll work our way to Bill Barr.

“The bottom line in Iran-Contra is: Cover-ups can work,” James Brosnahan, a prosecutor in the independent counsel’s Iran-Contra investigation, told me in a phone interview. “And that’s what we should be worried about here.”

[...]

Iran-Contra involved a feast of malfeasance. The initial crime was the Reagan administration’s illegal provision of military aid to anti-communist Nicaraguan guerillas known as the Contras. Separately, top administration officials ordered the illegal sale of anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles to Iran, in a series of (failed) exchanges aimed at the release of American hostages held by Iran-linked terrorist groups in Lebanon. Administration figures, led by National Security Council staffer Oliver North, then illegally used the proceeds from these Iran transactions to purchase more weapons for the Nicaraguan Contras. Finally, officials illegally falsified a presidential directive ordering the Iranian arms sales, and—in a cover-up of the preceding crimes—Cabinet and other top administration officials illegally obstructed investigators, lying to Congress and prosecutors in the process.

[...]

In Iran-Contra, Reagan administration officials illegally conspired with multiple foreign regimes to alter U.S. foreign policy. In Iran-Contra, part of the scandal revolved around inappropriate—and often illegal—dealings with a hostile, expansionist foreign power, a destabilizing force in its near-abroad and a sponsor of terror. In Iran-Contra, powerful administration figures lied to federal investigators about their relations with foreign officials from this hostile country. Perhaps this rings a bell.

The parallels to Trump-Russia don’t end there. In Iran-Contra, the independent counsel investigating the scandal, Lawrence Walsh, was a deadly serious Brahmin lawyer with a sterling Republican pedigree; he nevertheless faced withering criticism from members of his own party, just as special counsel Robert Mueller has. [...] Republicans attacked Walsh’s team for its purported partisan bias, clamoring for the resignation of key investigators, and railed against the probe’s purported waste and corruption. They even demanded that an investigation be opened into Walsh’s (spurious) improprieties.

Walsh’s team was “a hotbed of Democratic activist lawyers,” thundered Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, repeatedly, during the yearslong probe. In Walsh’s own account, Dole was a key figure in undermining public trust in the special counsel’s office and in thwarting its activities.

[...]

It was “the biggest witch hunt since Salem,” read placards at the 1992 Republican National Convention—echoing Trump’s own favorite term for the Mueller investigation.

[...]

Walsh, the Mueller of yesteryear, spent seven years fleshing out what was in essence a conspiracy to defraud the United States, only to see powerful political interests, whose fate sometimes depended on killing the investigation, bulldoze their way through a potential constitutional crisis.

Eleven people were convicted of Iran-Contra-related crimes, but all the principals walked away unscathed. The conviction of John Poindexter, a Reagan-era national security advisor, was overturned on appeal in 1991, as was that of Oliver North. [...] A former CIA officer involved with the scandal had his case dismissed when Bush’s attorney general refused, in a highly unusual maneuver, to declassify material deemed necessary for the defense by the trial judge.

  Foreign Policy

And here, we have found our way to William Barr, for he was Bush's AG.

There have been pitifully few consequences for individuals implicated in Iran-Contra. George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese are all venerated Republican elder statesmen.

[...]

Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty to lying to Congress as part of the Iran-Contra probe, worked in the George W. Bush administration and was very nearly Trump’s deputy secretary of state.

And instead is now his henchman in the attempted coup against Venezuela's elected president.

Poindexter got a job under George W. Bush with the Defense Department. In early 2017, McFarlane reportedly worked with Michael Flynn, then the national security advisor, on a shady proposal to finance nuclear power plants in the Middle East. Oliver North—who nearly rode his newfound Iran-Contra “celebrity” with the far-right into a Virginia Senate seat in 1994—is now the president of the National Rifle Association.

If the system fails during the Trump-Russia investigation, it certainly won’t be on Mueller’s shoulders alone, and Iran-Contra shows us why. The rot goes far deeper than Trump himself.

More details of Barr's involvement in the Iran-Contra coverup is provided in this Alternet article:

History shows that when a Republican president is in serious legal trouble, Bill Barr is the go-to guy.

[...]

Back in 1992, the last time Bill Barr was U.S. attorney general, iconic New York Times writer William Safire referred to him as “Coverup-General Barr” because of his role in burying evidence of then-President George H.W. Bush’s involvement in [the Iran-Contra affair].

[...]

Barr has struck again.

[...]

Barr—without showing us even a single complete sentence from the Mueller report—decided there are no crimes here. Just keep moving along.

Barr’s history of doing just this sort of thing to help Republican presidents in legal crises explains why Trump brought him back in to head the Justice Department.

[...]

Earlier in [George HW] Bush’s administration, Barr had succeeded in blocking the appointment of an investigator or independent counsel to look into Iraqgate, as Safire repeatedly documented in the Times. In December, Barr helped Bush block indictments from another independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, and eliminated any risk that Reagan or George H.W. Bush would be held to account for Iran-Contra.

[...]

Christmas day of 1992, the New York Times featured a screaming all-caps headline across the top of its front page: Attorney General Bill Barr had covered up evidence of crimes by Reagan and Bush in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Earlier that week of Christmas, 1992, George H.W. Bush was on his way out of office. Bill Clinton had won the White House the month before, and in a few weeks would be sworn in as president.

But Bush’s biggest concern wasn’t that he’d have to leave the White House to retire back to Connecticut, Maine, or Texas (where he had homes) but, rather, that he may end up embroiled even deeper in Iran-Contra and that his colleagues may face time in a federal prison after he left office.

Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh was closing in fast on him, and Bush’s private records, subpoenaed by the independent counsel’s office, were the key to it all.

[...]

Walsh had zeroed in on documents that were in the possession of Reagan’s former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, who all the evidence showed was definitely in on the deal, and President Bush’s diary that could corroborate it. Elliott Abrams had already been convicted of withholding evidence from Congress, and he may have even more information, too, if it could be pried out of him before he went to prison. But Abrams was keeping mum, apparently anticipating a pardon.

Weinberger, trying to avoid jail himself, was preparing to testify that Bush knew about it and even participated, and Walsh had already, based on information he’d obtained from the investigation into Weinberger, demanded that Bush turn over his diary from the campaign. He was also again hot on the trail of Abrams.

So Bush called in his attorney general, Bill Barr, and asked his advice.

Barr, along with Bush, was already up to his eyeballs in cover-ups of shady behavior by the Reagan administration.

[...]

[I]n another scandal—having to do with Bush selling weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein—Barr was already covering up for Bush, Weinberger, and others from the Reagan administration.

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“I went over and told the President I thought he should not only pardon Caspar Weinberger, but while he was at it, he should pardon about five others,” [Barr told an interviewer in 2001.]

Which is exactly what Bush did, on Christmas Eve when most Americans were with family instead of watching the news. The holiday notwithstanding, the result was explosive.

America knew that both Reagan and Bush were up to their necks in Iran-Contra, and Democrats had been talking about impeachment or worse. The independent counsel had already obtained one conviction, three guilty pleas, and two other individuals were lined up for prosecution. And Walsh was closing in fast on Bush himself.

[...]

Bush shut the investigation down by pardoning not only Weinberger, but also Abrams and the others involved in the crimes, destroying Walsh’s ability to prosecute anybody.

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[Journalist William] Safire accused Barr of not only rigging the cover-up, but of being one of the criminals who could be prosecuted.

“Mr. Barr,” wrote Safire in August of 1992, “…could face prosecution if it turns out that high Bush officials knew about Saddam Hussein’s perversion of our Agriculture export guarantees to finance his war machine.”

He added, “They [Barr and colleagues] have a keen personal and political interest in seeing to it that the Department of Justice stays in safe, controllable Republican hands.”

[...]

Independent Counsel Walsh added that the diary and notes he wanted to enter into a public trial of Weinberger represented, “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public.”

The phrase “highest ranking” officials included Reagan and Bush.

[...]

Both Trump and senior Republican leadership are already calling for a repeat of ’93; what remains to be seen is if the press and Democratic leadership will go along like they did back then.

  Alternet

On the evening of George H.W. Bush’s 1992 Christmas Eve pardons, Walsh held a hastily convened press conference in his hometown of Oklahoma City. Bush’s action, Walsh said at time, “demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office—deliberately abusing the public trust—without consequences.”

As Walsh recalled, “near the end [of the press conference] one reporter asked, ‘Is the message here if you work for the government, you’re above the law?’”

“That,” he replied, “depends on the president you work for.”

  Foreign Policy

And, unfortunately, Bob Mueller doesn't appear to be a Lawrence Walsh.

Barr did what he was hired to do.  Twice.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



Not in this country.  And that's why they keep committing them.