The whole Meece is a pig thing might have been to ruin the man...............was he all that of a pig? After all it was him that noticed,,,,,,,,,,,as attorney general............that the fed. gov's bookkeeping did not match............in accounting u want the amount coming in and going out.........all of it to be accounted for...........if a business is in the red...........they are loosing money...........if you are in the black,,,,,,,,,u are making a profit......................but it needs to be documented,,,,,,,,,,accounted for...............Halliburton................owned at least in part by former Vice Presidnet of the USA........Dick Cheney..........and he was vice pres.......for 8 years......................went ten whole years without paying taxes...........yet the IRS goes after single women with two kids.......................some great country...........this place sucks.........

Iran-Contra and Arms-for-Hostages Scandals

Edwin Meese

Project: Iran-Contra and Arms-for-Hostages Scandals
Open-Content project managed by mtuck
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December 5, 1985: Reagan Retroactively Authorizes Secret Missile Sales to Iran

President Reagan issues a secret presidential finding that retroactively authorizes the sale of Hawk missiles to Iran, a sale that took place a month before (see November 24-25, 1985). When Attorney General Edwin Meese conducts his November 1986 “investigation” of the Iran arms sales, the documentation of that finding will be destroyed (see November 21-25, 1986). Congress will not be told of the Hawk sales, as mandated by law. [New York Times, 11/19/1987; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 66]

Entity Tags: Edwin Meese, Ronald Reagan
Category Tags: Iran-Contra Affair, Edwin Meese, Internal Investigation

January 1986: Attorney General Meese Asked to Support Iran Arms Deals with Legal Opinion

Attorney General Edwin Meese becomes directly involved in the Reagan administration’s secret plan to sell arms to Iran, when he is asked to render a legal opinion supporting the plan. [United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 8/4/1993] Months later, Meese will conduct an “investigation” of the Iran-Contra affair (see November 21-25, 1986), a possible conflict of interest in light of his legal opinion to justify the arms sales.

Entity Tags: Edwin Meese, Reagan administration
Category Tags: Arms-for-Hostages Scandal, Edwin Meese

November 21-25, 1986: Attorney General Meese Conducts ‘Investigation’ of Iran Arms Sales; Evidence Destroyed during Investigation

Attorney General Edwin Meese. [Source: Doug Mills / Bettman / Corbis]Attorney General Edwin Meese undertakes an internal fact-finding investigation focused on President Reagan’s involvement in the November 1985 sale of Hawk missiles to Iran (see 1985). Meese is apparently not interested in finding facts, because he refuses a request to assist from the FBI, and takes no notes during his interviews of administration officials.
'Shredding Party' - Additionally, during his investigation, National Security Council documents are altered or destroyed, including a presidential finding from December 1985 that retroactively authorized US missile sales to Iran (see November 24-25, 1985 and December 5, 1985); National Security Adviser John Poindexter will later admit to destroying this document. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North holds what is later called a “shredding party,” destroying thousands of documents that would likely implicate White House officials in a criminal conspiracy to break the law (see November 21-23, 1986). The Iran-Contra investigative committee will later fault Meese for departing from “standard investigative techniques” during his investigation.
Document Linking Iran Arms Sales, Contra Supplies Survives - Meese also finds a potentially explosive document in the desk of North, the National Security Council staffer who managed the Iran arms deals. The document, an undated memorandum apparently from April 1986, outlined “a planned diversion of $12 million in proceeds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras” (see April 4, 1986). Meese’s investigation now diverges onto two tracks, one a continuation of the Hawk shipments, and the second an investigation into who knew about, and who had approved, the diversion.
Reagan Courting Impeachment? - Meese confirms from North that the $12 million had indeed been given to the Contras, and informs Reagan, Chief of Staff Donald Regan, and Vice President Bush. Reagan is reportedly shocked by the revelation, in part because he knows he could face impeachment for violating the Boland Amendment (see October 10, 1984). Meese informs the cabinet the next day. Apparently Meese does not want to know if any senior White House officials knew of the diversion, because he does not ask them about it. When Poindexter informs Meese that before December 1985, his predecessor Robert McFarlane handled the Iran arms sales “all alone” with “no documentation,” Meese accepts his word. Several White House officials present at the meeting—Reagan, Regan, Bush, Poindexter, Secretary of State George Shultz, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger—all know that Poindexter is lying, but none correct him. After the meeting, Shultz tells his aide, Charles Hill: “They may lay all this off on Bud [McFarlane].… They [are] rearranging the record.” Investigative counsel Lawrence Walsh will later write: “The Select Committees viewed this as an isolated error. It was not.”
'Case for Deniability' for Reagan - In Walsh’s opinion, Meese is not conducting an investigation at all, but instead is “building a case of deniability for his client-in-fact, President Reagan.” Walsh will characterize Meese’s actions as “an effort to obstruct a congressional inquiry.” In 2006, authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will write, “The two strands of an illegal policy came together in that memo.” The authors refer to the US arms sales to Iran and the diversion of the profits from those sales to the Contras. [New York Times, 11/19/1987; United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 8/4/1993; PBS, 2000; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 66]

November 25, 1986: Attorney General Meese Reveals Iran-Contra Funding Connection; Poindexter Resigns, North Fired

Attorney General Edwin Meese announces the results of his internal “investigation” of US arms sales to Iran (see November 21-25, 1986). In the conference, Meese announces that President Reagan did not learn of the US shipments of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles (see 1985, November 24-25, 1985, and August 4, 1986) until February 1986. Investigators for Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh will later conclude that Meese lied; not only did Meese never ask Reagan about his knowledge of the Hawk shipments, he ignored evidence and testimony that proved Reagan did indeed know of the shipments, such as a statement from Secretary of State George Shultz that Reagan had told him that he had known of the Hawk shipments in advance. But Meese will also, reluctantly, admit that the US had illegally diverted between $10 million and $30 million in funds from Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras (see April 4, 1986). National Security Adviser John Poindexter immediately resigns, and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North is fired from the National Security Council staff. [New York Times, 11/19/1987; United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 8/4/1993; PBS, 2000]

Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan, National Security Council, Contras, Edwin Meese, George Shultz, John Poindexter, Lawrence E. Walsh, Oliver North, Office of the Independent Counsel (Iran-Contra)
Category Tags: Arms-for-Hostages Scandal, Iran-Contra Affair, Internal Investigation, Edwin Meese, George Shultz, John Poindexter, Oliver North, Ronald Reagan

February 2, 1987: Reagan Gives Incoherent Testimony to Tower Commission

President Reagan testifies for a second time to the Tower Commission (see January 26, 1987). His testimony is incoherent and confused; some observers outside the White House begin speculating that Reagan suffers from Alzheimer’s disease or senile dementia. Commission investigators note that while the Meese investigation claimed Reagan did not know of the August 1985 shipment of missiles to Iran (see August 20, 1985 and November 21-25, 1986), Reagan himself claimed in his previous testimony he did know of the shipments. When asked to clarify the inconsistency, Reagan shocks onlookers by picking up a briefing memo he had been given and reading aloud, “If the question comes up at the Tower Board meeting, you might want to say that you were surprised.” [PBS, 2000] White House counsel Peter Wallison is stunned. “I was horrified, just horrified,” he later recalls. “I didn’t expect him to go and get the paper. The purpose of it was just to recall to his mind before he goes into the meeting” what he, Wallison, and Chief of Staff Donald Regan had agreed was the proper chain of events—that Reagan had not known of the shipments beforehand, and had been surprised to learn of them. [Cannon, 1991, pp. 631-632]

Entity Tags: Peter Wallison, Tower Commission, Ronald Reagan, Donald Regan
Category Tags: Violation of US Law, Internal Investigation, Tower Commission, Edwin Meese, Ronald Reagan

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Monday, March 2, 2015