Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
In Studio: Judy Woodruff- Elizabeth let s go back for a moment to some questions we started to talk about before Congressman Hamilton was there. But about some questions very specific questions, Democratic Congressman Peter Rodino raised with Colonel North. In Studio: Elizabeth Drew-Well Congressman Rodino as you pointed out is Chairman of the House Judiciary committee is interested in what happened over the weekend that Attorney General Mies was conducting an investigation of this whole series of events which led to the disclosure of the diversion. He clearly has some doubts about it. But he asked some surprising questions. I think they took North a bit by surprise. We should point out that that is the one exchange that Brendon Sullivan has tried to end. He said that Rodino had gone over his time but most of them had gone over their time. But Sullivan clearly didn t enjoy the line of questioning and they looked just a little less certain in their answers. I don t mean to incorrectly interpret but you can just tell what s been rehearsed that he s quite sure of. He s been over this for months. These didn t seem to be answered with the same assurances. Now the interesting thing is what was in the questions. Rodino asked if North had met with the Attorney General on the Friday. This is the Friday before the weekend when all the shredding went on and then they found the diversion memo. And whether during that meeting he asked the Attorney General whether they had 24 or 48 hours? North said of course he didn t recall anything like that. And Rodino pointed out that North s own assistant, Robert Earle had testified to the committee that this had happened. So North said well maybe I talked to someone at Justice. And maybe it was about trying to hold up the investigation of Southern Air Transport, which is the airline which had been both sending aide to the Contras and helping with the hostage release. And North had been trying to hold up the investigation of that apparently because it was supposed to lead to what we learned greater about the Contras. Then there was a question about well did he call the Justice Department and talk to Brad Reynolds, who was running the investigation. In Studio: Judy Woodruff- Because it appeared on his telephone log. In Studio: Elizabeth Drew-It was on his phone log. And he said no he didn t remember that and then he saw that his attorney, his then attorney Tom Greene s name was also on the phone log. Well maybe he called him. But that doesn t quite explain this. Well maybe I talked about needing the time to get the hostages out. Rodino said why did you ask if there was a cover memo on the diversion memo. And did you ask what happened to the five memoranda that went up. So there were a lot of interesting areas that Rodino opened up. In Studio: Judy Woodruff-But what would the significance be and again this was a hypothetical but this is what Congressman Rodino was asking. If North or his attorneys had a conversation with an assistant attorney general at the time of this investigation, this fact finding investigation was underway. In Studio: Elizabeth Drew-Well clearly overall he was looking to see if there was any kind of a fix. If there really was a proper investigation, whether he was negotiating something? Those opening questions clearly he was asking North whether he talked to the Attorney General and tried to get some time after which he shredded documents. There are a lot of questions about that weekend. I think they will be continued certainly when Poindexter comes in and absolutely when Attorney General Mies comes. But also all of these keep leading to among other things the President s role in this whole thing.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
In Studio: Judy Woodruff-I wanted to ask you about something that came up earlier this afternoon and that is, it was humorous at the time. Congressman Henry Hyde, very articulate republican from Illinois, talked about the display that had been on the wall that showed the Bowen Amendment. And of course what came out last week is that what was put on the wall was not the entire bill that the president had signed. It was a small portion of it with the President s signature affixed to the end of it. The point of course that Congressman Hyde was trying to make was that when the President signed this and he held up the papers, these many hundreds or thousands of sheets of paper, he didn t go through and say Ahha. I m signing the Bowen Amendment. In Studio: Elizabeth Drew-Right. Right. In Studio: Judy Woodruff-But he does have a point in a way, when some of the members try to say the President knew he was signing the Bowen Amendment, the fact is it was the Bowen Amendment but it was attached to a lengthy last minute appropriations bill. In Studio: Elizabeth Drew-Well that s true it was part of an annual bill but so had several Bowen Amendments in previous years. They keep writing new Bowen amendments because the administration kept finding ways to evade the ones they wrote. Only they wrote this one which cut off all military assistance to the Contras. It went through the legislative process, the administration was aware of it. And they were preparing for it in the testimony. It s true that the President had to sign this catch all bill but then they had several options. If they thought it was unconstitutional they could of as they did with the Grand Rudman bill, the President signed that too as part of a larger bill. They challenged it in the courts. Where they could of said I m signing this but I really disagree with this particular provision and gone back to Congress and Said I demand you fix this and lobbied very hard and tried to get it fixed. Or he could of gone to Congress and said well we see that you passed this law but we do not believe it covers the National Security Council ,so we are putting this in the National Security Council. They did none of those things. They put it in the National Security Council and kept it a secret.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
In Studio: Judy Woodruff-What difference does it make if the National Security Council did violate the Bowen, if the White House, if the President violated the Bowen Amendment? What have we if that. In Studio: Elizabeth Drew-We have a breakdown of the constitutional system. But what people are so disturbed about, at the heart of these hearings is the question of can you check the excesses of the executive, if there are some? The founding fathers back to them are going to be celebrated this week down in Philadelphia. One of their major concerns when they broke from England was a king. They didn t want a king. They wanted checks and balances to check the excesses of the executive. That was their term so they have these checks and balances. Therefore, if this happened, if they violated the Bowen Amendment and they said it doesn t apply to us and so on. What you have is the executive branch saying if Congress passes a law and we don t like it we re not going to abide by it. Then we have a complete constitutional break down and that s really what is basic in the minds of many of the members in that committee. In Studio: Judy Woodruff-We should say that even though Congressman Hyde is of course a very sympathetic member of the committee towards Congressman, sorry toward Colonel North and towards the Reagan administration. That even he said during his statement that he did not think it was right for the White House to be conducting an effort to support the Contras privately in the White House. Elizabeth tomorrow I guess we re going to have another dozen members who will carry on their questions and as we just heard following Colonel North s testimony. We will hear once again from Former White House National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane, and after him perhaps tomorrow perhaps the next day a National Security Official at the White House. Thank you Elizabeth Drew. We will be back tomorrow morning nine o clock eastern daylight time to hear testimony from Colonel Oliver North. I am Judy Woodruff, thank you for joining us.
Iran-Contra Hearings - Testimony of Colonel Oliver North.
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