Reply #18: Meese is more than lucky to be a free man.

[Octafish]

He is connected.



To the BFEE.

What Independent Counsel Judge Lawrence Walsh, a real Republican, had to say regarding Edwin Meese III:

Chapter 31
Edwin Meese III: November 1986
Attorney General Edwin Meese III became directly involved in the Reagan Administration's secret plan to sell weapons to Iran in January 1986, when he was asked for a legal opinion to support the plan.1 When the secret arms sales became exposed in November 1986, raising questions of legality and prompting congressional and public scrutiny, Meese became the point man for the Reagan Administration's effort, in Meese's words, ``to limit the damage.'' 2

1 Meese, Select Committees Testimony, 7/28/87, pp. 2-9; 21-36. Meese also supported the plan. (Ibid., pp. 5-7.)

2 Meese, North Trial Testimony, 3/28/89, pp. 5747-48.

Meese began with an attempt to justify legally President Reagan's failure to notify Congress of the arms sales for more than a year. His efforts led to a November 21-24 fact-finding investigation focused on the President's involvement in the November 1985 HAWK missile shipment to Iran.

The Select Iran/contra Committees criticized Meese for departing from ``standard investigative techniques'' in his fact-finding mission because he failed to protect National Security Council documents, many of which were altered or destroyed as he conducted one-on-one interviews with senior Administration officials without taking notes.3 The Select Committees also faulted Meese for ``incorrectly'' stating in his November 25, 1986, press conference, at which he disclosed the Iran/contra diversion, that President Reagan did not learn of the 1985 shipment until February 1986. The Select Committees viewed this as an isolated error. It was not.

3 Select Committees Report, pp. 10-11, pp. 20-21, pp. 306-07, p. 311, pp. 317-18.

Meese was conducting the November 21-24 investigation as ``counselor'' and ``friend'' to the President, not as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Independent Counsel concluded that he was not so much searching for the truth about the November 1985 HAWK shipment, as he was building a case of deniability for his client-in-fact, President Reagan. By this time, Meese knew that the 1985 HAWK transaction, in which the National Security Council staff and the Central Intelligence Agency were directly involved without a presidential covert-action Finding authorizing their involvement, raised serious legal questions. The President was potentially exposed to charges of illegal conduct if he was knowledgeable of the shipment and had not reported it to Congress, under the requirements of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and in the absence of a Finding. But Meese apparently never questioned the President himself about whether he approved or knew about the November 1985 HAWK shipment. When Meese got answers in his inquiry that did not support his defense of the President, he apparently ignored them, as he did with Secretary of State George P. Shultz's revelation on November 22 that the President had told him that he had known of the HAWK shipment in advance.

In the course of the weekend inquiry, Meese and his aides discovered in the National Security Council Office of Lt. Col. Oliver L. North a politically explosive document: An undated memorandum, apparently drafted in early April 1986, that outlined a planned diversion of $12 million in proceeds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras. This discovery caused the Meese inquiry to veer off onto two tracks -- while facts about the 1985 HAWK shipment were still being gathered, there was a second effort to determine who knew about and who approved the diversion. After receiving confirmation from North that an Iran/contra diversion had occurred, Meese quietly imparted the news to the President, White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan and Vice President Bush on November 24, sounding them out privately on their personal knowledge of it. He did not inform a senior advisers' meeting that afternoon. He informed the Cabinet on the next day.

Meese attempted to resolve the separate but continuing problem of the HAWK shipment -- particularly the President's contemporaneous knowledge -- at the senior advisers' meeting on Monday, November 24, attended by President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Regan, National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, and CIA Director William J. Casey. In response to a question about the November 1985 HAWK shipment, Poindexter falsely claimed that before December 1985, McFarlane handled the Iran arms sales ``all alone'' with ``no documentation.'' 4 Meese then added that the November 1985 HAWK shipment ``ay be a violation of law if arms shipped w/o a finding. But President did not know.'' 5 At least Meese, President Reagan, Regan, Shultz, Weinberger, Bush, and Poindexter knew that Meese's version was false, but no one spoke up to correct him. After the meeting, Shultz told his aide M. Charles Hill, ``They may lay all this off on Bud . . . They rearranging the record.'' 6

4 Weinberger Note, 11/24/86, ALZ 0040669LL.

5 Regan Note, 11/24/86, ALU 0139379.

6 Hill Note, 11/24/86, ANS 00001898.

CONTINUED BFEE TREASON DOCUMENTED...

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_31.htm

There's a lot more. I'll update ASAFP, once the steam stops coming out of my ears.