Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 17:14:46 -0800
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: well, pardon me!, Version 5

>> I didn't say that the president was exempt from the law.  I said that
>> the president had approval authority.  For example, suppose that the
>> law says that arms can't be sent to terrorist nations, but the
>> president defines "terrorist nations".
>And he defined Iran as a terrorist nation.  He never recinded it and it
>still is defined as a terrorist nation.  Further, even though he wrote a
>"Finding" at a later time, allowing him to sell arms to Iran, that doesn't
>cut it, IMHO.

I must have missed the "Ask Fisher his opinion" section of the Export
Control Act.

Lots of things are authorized by presidential findings.  (No, they
aren't the result of a court proceeding.)  Arguably delegating that
authority to the president is as bad as Congress' other habit of
delegating of authority to write regulations, but it is the law.

>My understanding is that these were US arms which may or may not have
>been owned by Israel.

The difference is important.

>If they weren't owned by Israel, then obviously
>we were involved in the shipping of the arms.

It isn't obvious; shipping requires on physical possession, not legal
ownership.

>Israel, they need express permission from us to sell them to anyone.

That's seems to be SOP for US arms sold, but if the Israelis don't
bother to get that permission, they're on the hook, not some US
official.  (Now, if they think they have permission but they don't,
things turn on why they think it.)

>My understanding is that by having a government official beg people
>for money for the contras, the law has been violated.

We'll have to see the text of the law.  I would be very surprised if
it covered lobbying.

>> And, he came up with squat.
>As I stated before, (in versions 1 - 4), the reason that he came up with
>'squat' (good word BTW!) was because the Reagan/Bush administrations did
>all that they could to inhibit his investigations.

All they could do?  (I can think of several things they could have
done, and didn't do.)  Do we have evidence of illegal activity to
inhibit investigations or are we just assuming that it happened.

>> Were they related in any useful sense?  I'll bet that North speeds; if
>> we're going with the "the same people" theory, shouldn't Walsh be out
>> there with a radar gun too?  (Aren't detectors are illegal in VA?)
>And was North charged with speeding?  No.  He was convicted with crimes
>relating to the Iran/Contra mess/scandal.

Where in the charge to the special prosecutor did it mention security
systems or even gifts?  Remember - Walsh was supposedly looking for
arms for hostages stuff.  We don't appoint special prosecutors to look
into gift receipt.

The connection between North's conviction and the special prosecutor's
charge is that North was involved.

>> Where is this "our behest" law written down?
>Who said that it had to be a law?

If violating a rule is a crime, it pretty much has to be a law.
That's how we do that sort of thing.

I'll ask the question again.

>> >was not exempt for the above named law.  Further, even though it was
>> >an ally that actually sent the arms to Iran, it was at our behest.
>> >Since the arms were sold for an outrageous amount, the extra monies
>> >should have been deposited into our treasury, not in various peoples
>> >pockets.

If they weren't our arms, why are we necessarily entitled to any
profit on the deal?  (Sure, we may choose to make that a condition of
permission, but where's the law that says that we have to do so?)

>The president of the United States
>calls you up and says "send these arms there.  You will be compensated".
>What would you do?

I ask "how much?"  If I don't like the answer, I don't do it.

What law says that a president can't ask?

>> Note that they weren't our arms.  If they had been, then we're
>> entitled to the profits.  If we're unwilling to sell, we don't have
>> much of a beef when someone else does.  We can whine about the
>> Israelis' diverting arms, but that's not a crime committed by our
>> govt.
>I think that to believe that you have to close you eyes.

Not at all.

>Israel believed
>that Iran was less dangerous than Iraq.  So they wanted to tilt the war
>towards Iran.  They didn't need a lot of help to sell arms to Iran.

In other words, they wanted to do it.  That makes them easy to convince.
Is it against the law to try to convince them?

>they did need our express permission and we forbade the selling of arms
>to Iran and to Iraq.

Except, we didn't actually forbid it.  It appears that the relevant
law, the Export Arms Control Act, was obeyed.  Fisher thinks we should
have forbidden it, but his opinion lacks standing.

>> However, it agrees with what Weinburger says that that note actually
>> says, as opposed to Walsh's interpretations.
>The note is pretty clear.  You don't need to depend on interpretations
>to understand it.

I agree that it is pretty clear, which is why I think Walsh is
stretching things quite a bit.

>This could be true.  But the note says, that Reagan said that given a
>choice between doing something illegal and getting the hostages back and
>not getting the hostages back, he would choose the illegal choice and he
>believed that selling arms for hostages was illegal.

So?  Is that a crime?

-andy
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