Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Thu, 31 Dec 1992 15:22:48 -0800
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: well, pardon me!, Version 5

>> 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.
>
>But is it? This finding happened _after_ the illegal activity.

Weinberger didn't say that.  He said that he found out about the
finding later.  That doesn't imply that the finding happened after the
acts it "authorized".

>Shouldn't that be something that the special prosecutor
>looks into?

It's easy enough to check.  We know when the shipments occur.  All we
have to do is find out when the finding happened and then see if the
arms export act has a waiting period.  Did Walsh bother with this?
Did Reagan/Bush keep the finding away from Walsh?  Or, did everything
check out on this score so Walsh went on to other activity?  Why is
Fisher assuming that things didn't check out?

Note that this is slam-dunk evidence if the facts work out.  It
becomes a prosecution as soon as you find anyone involved in the
shipment, and we found lots of those people a long time ago.


>> >we were involved in the shipping of the arms.
>>
>> It isn't obvious; shipping requires on physical possession, not legal
>> ownership.
>So if we own arms that are in stored in Israel, we tell Israel to
>load them onto one of our transport planes and our people (McFarlane et al.)
>get onto the plane and fly into a terrorist nation to sell them the
>arms, this isn't shipping of arms?

So, if we own arms that are stored in Israel, what keeps them from
shipping them without our permission?  They may let McFarlane
come along for the ride.

I'm not claiming that that happened.  I'm claiming that "ownership
implies control" is incorrect.  Possession implies control - ownership
is a legal fiction.

>> We'll have to see the text of the law.  I would be very surprised if
>> it covered lobbying.
>
>OK.  But don't you think that that is what the special prosecutor was
>going to find out?

Huh?  We start by reading the law.  There are three possibilities.  It
may not cover lobbying at all.  It may cover lobbying.  It might be
unclear.  Prosecutors don't make this determination.  They bring
prosecutions and the court decides.  Walsh didn't.

Investigations are irrelevant to the "does the law cover lobbying"
question.  They can only tell us what occured, not what the law says
about what occurred.

>> 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.
>That's what the special prosecutor was doing.  He had already convicted
>a couple (more?) of people for "obstruction of justice".

While there are convictions, I frankly don't place much weight on
guilty pleas given the way the criminal justice system works.  The
deck is stacked.

>Since Bush has just announced that he had notes and Walsh has been
>asking him for notes for years, I think that Bush should be put on
>trial for "obstruction of justice".

Walsh doesn't get to ask for "notes".  He gets to ask for notes
relating to certain things.  If he asks for "notes showing that you
were present at an arms for hostages deal", notes showing that bush
knew about arms deals that he felt were unrelated to hostage trades
aren't covered.

>> 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.
>
>No, that's true.  And if North's security system wasn't related to Iran/Contra,
>Walsh wouldn't have worried about it.  The security system illustrated how
>North profited by the transactions.

No, the security system illustrated that North profitted from gifts.
The "those gifts were part of the deal" connection as never made.

>> >> Where is this "our behest" law written down?
>
>The question is what does violating the Arms Export Control Act mean?
>That was for the special prosecutor to find out.

Wrong.  Prosecutors don't "interpret" the law and investigations into
whether or not specific acts occurred don't tell us whether or not
those acts are covered.

>> 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.
>
>I'm sure that it does.  But the opinion that doesn't lack standing were the
>judges and juries that Walsh was going to bring people in front of, if
>he had been allowed to do so.

Really?  Walsh doesn't know when the finding took effect?  He doesn't
know when the shipments happened?  He doesn't know anyone involved in
the shipments?

Remember the "roll up the small-fry and get them to squeal on the big
folks" argument?  You don't have to start very high up to find someone
affected by the arms control export act.

>> So?  Is that a crime?
>Is the fact that the president believed what he was doing was illegal a crime?
>There's an interesting question.  I guess that it doesn't matter what the
>president believed, if what he was doing wasn't a crime.  Although, maybe you
>like your president to be doing illegal stuff, I don't.

So?  Until "Fisher dislikes it" becomes criminal, that's outside the
scope of a special prosecutor's domain.

>But to answer the question, is that a crime?
>That's what the special prosecutor was to find out.

Nope.  That's not what special prosecutors do.  They're tasked with
finding activities, not with determining whether or not those
activities are illegal.

-andy
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