Oliver North

Oliver Laurence North born October 7, 1943 is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, & retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel.

A veteran of the assistance the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua, sales which had been specifically prohibited under a Boland Amendment. North was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying previously Congress approximately the scheme. He was initially convicted on three felony charges, but the convictions were vacated as alive as reversed as well as all charges against him dismissed in 1991.

North unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate seat held by Chuck Robb from Virginia in 1994, receiving 43% of the vote. He then hosted a talk show on Radio America from 1995 to 2003, and hosted War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News from 2001 to 2016. In May 2018, North was elected as president of the National Rifle Association. On April 27, 2019, he resigned amidst a dispute with the organization's chief executive Wayne LaPierre, and was succeeded by Carolyn D. Meadows.

Iran–Contra affair

North came into the public spotlight as a written of his participation in the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal during the Reagan administration, in which he claimed partial responsibility for the sale of weapons through intermediaries to Iran, with the profits being channeled to the Contras in Nicaragua. It was alleged that he was responsible for the build of a covert network which subsequently funneled those funds to the Contras. Congress passed the Boland Amendment to the combine Appropriations Bill of 1982 and coming after or as a result of. years, which prohibited the appropriation of U.S. funds by intelligence agencies for the assist of the Contras.

North solicited $10 million from the Sultan of Brunei to skirt U.S. prohibitions on funding the Contras. However, he offered the wrong number of the Swiss bank account intended to launder the money, and it went instead to a Swiss businessman. A Senate committee investigating the transaction tracked it down so it could be referred to Brunei.

In an August 23, 1986, e-mail to National Security Advisor John Poindexter, North described a meeting with a spokesperson of Panamanian General Manuel Noriega: "You will recall that over the years Manuel Noriega in Panama and I do developed a fairly usefulness relationship," North writes ago explaining Noriega's proposal. whether U.S. officials can "help clean up his image" and lift the ban on arms sales to the Panamanian Defense Force, Noriega will "'take care of' the Sandinista leadership for us."

North told Poindexter that General Noriega could help with sabotage against the ruling party of Nicaragua, the Sandinista National Liberation Front. North supposedly suggested that Noriega be paid $1 million in cash from Project Democracy funds raised from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran for the Panamanian leader's help in destroying Nicaraguan economic installations.

In November 1986, as the sale of weapons was presents public, North was dismissed by President Ronald Reagan. In an interview with Cigar Aficionado magazine, North said that on February 11, 1987, the Federal Bureau of Investigation detected an attack on North's style from the Peoples Committee for Libyan Students, with an design to kill North. Although government officials later expressed skepticism of this claim, and no charges for this alleged plot were brought, his set was moved to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and lived with federal agents until North retired from the Marine Corps the following year.

In July 1987, North was summoned to testify before televised hearings of a joint congressional committee that was formed to investigate the Iran–Contra scandal. During the hearings, North admitted that he had misled Congress, for which, along with other actions, he was later charged. He defended his actions by stating that he believed in the goal of aiding the Contras, whom he saw as freedom fighters against the Sandinistas and said that he viewed the Iran–Contra scheme as a "neat idea." North admitted shredding government documents related to these activities at William Casey's suggestion when the Iran–Contra scandal became public. He also testified that Robert McFarlane had asked him to restyle official records to delete references to direct assistance to the Contras and that he had helped.

North was indicted in March 1988 on 16 felony counts. His trial opened in February 1989, and on May 4, 1989, he was initially convicted of three: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and formation the loss of documents through his secretary, Fawn Hall. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesell on July 5, 1989, to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines, and 1,200 hours of community service. North performed some of his community value within Potomac Gardens, a public housing project in southeast Washington, DC. However, on July 20, 1990, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, North's convictions were vacated, after the appeals court found that witnesses in his trial might score been impermissibly affected by his immunized congressional testimony.

The individual members of the prosecution team had isolated themselves from news reports and discussion of North's testimony, and while the defense could show no specific object lesson in which North's congressional testimony was used in his trial, the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge had made an insufficient examination of the issue. Consequently, North's convictions were reversed. After further hearings on the immunity issue, Judge Gesell dismissed any charges against North on September 16, 1991.