Oliver North

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Oliver North speaking at CPAC in 2017
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Oliver North (born October 7, 1943)[1] was a military colonel most famous for his actions during the Iran-Contra scandal during the administration of Ronald Reagan.

Iran-Contra[edit]

North is most infamous for his actions during Iran-Contra scandal, where he sold weapons to Iran and gave large amounts of the profits to a group in Nicaragua called the Contras "with the full knowledge of National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter and with the unspoken blessing, he assumed, of President Reagan."[2] In the process, he violated both a weapons embargo the United States had placed on Iran[3] and a ban on funding the Contras Congress had put in effect.[4]

But this was far from the only time North broke the law, he went on to admit during a televised hearing that he had previously misled Congress regarding his actions[5] along with the shredding of documents that would have provided information on what North did.[6]

For all of this and much more, North was indicted on sixteen felony counts in March 1988[7] with his trial starting in February of the following year.[8] North was convicted on some of these accounts,[9] although they were all later overturned over how his witnesses could have been impermissibly affected due to his Congressional testimony.[10]

In a nutshell[edit]

Punditry[edit]

After the affair, North went on to become a pundit, as well as the president of the National Rifle Assocation in September of 2018, before resigning on April 29, 2019.

References[edit]