Dems Seek Roberts' Documents on Iran-Contra Aid
Yale Law Prof and blogger Jack Balkin explains why the Administration should turn over memos from Judge John Roberts to then-Reagan aide Patrick J. Buchanan in March 1986 on the subject of aid to Nicaraguans who were fighting the leftist Sandinista government. Background from the Washington Post is here. Balkin writes:
....during his time in the Reagan Administration John Roberts offered advice on the establishment of the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO), an organization used by the Reagan Administration to circumvent the Boland Amendment. For those of you who don't remember, the Boland Amendment made it illegal for U.S. intelligence agencies to provide covert funding to the contras in Nicaragua.
Balkin says that to get around the amendment, Reagan approved a plan by John Poindexter and Oliver North to sell anti-tank and anti-aircraft missles to Iran, the funds from which were then provided to the contras.
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