Oliver North

Oliver North speaking at CPAC in 2017

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Oliver North (October 7, 1943–) was a military colonel most famous for his actions during the Iran-Contra scandal during the administration of Ronald Reagan.

Iran-Contra

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." In the process, he violated both a weapons embargo the United States had placed on Iran and a ban on funding the Contras Congress had put in effect.

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 along with the shredding of documents that would have provided information on what North did.

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

Punditry

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