Lawrence Walsh's Last Battle search.nytimes.com
As the defendants scurried for the protective cover of Government secrecy, Walsh's ability to do his job was severely curtailed. "The outsidedness was strange," he tells me. But the habit of perseverance had been deeply ingrained in him. He would soon conclude, as he recalls it, that he was dealing with an Administration "with no feeling for the rule of law." The sale of arms to Iran violated explicit Congressional policy, set out in the Arms Export Control Act. The supplying of money to Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries violated the Boland Amendment, passed by Congress in 1984 to cut off aid to the contras. Yet all the Government seemed to want to do was to block prosecution of those who broke the law. And as Walsh continued to press for the information he needed, what he once regarded as unthinkable began to be undeniable: there was a cover-up of illegal activities that went straight up through the executive branch and into the Oval Office. As Walsh would say toward the end of his investigation: "The President had deliberately defied the Arms Export Control Act . . . [in a] deliberate defiance of Congress, and Congress's remedy in a situation like that is to consider impeachment." . . .
Walsh had come to Washington to conduct his last great investigation. Whatever sentiments he had harbored about preserving the dignity and political viability of the Republican Party, he was now locked in battle with an Administration that had amply displayed its contempt for the law by refusing to even appear in the World Court when the United States was accused of mining the harbors of Nicaragua with deadly explosives.
This smug self-interestedness reached its painful apotheosis with George Bush's postelection pardons of Weinberger, McFarlane, Elliott Abrams and three former C.I.A. officials, Duane (Dewey) Clarridge, Alan Fiers and Clair George.
With those pardons, Walsh exploded from the careful lawyer's diction and restraints. Walsh lashed out on national television, in words that strongly implied that President Bush's motive for the pardons had nothing to do with mercy but was a craven attempt to save his own skin: "President Bush had failed to produce to investigators his own highly relevant, contemporaneous notes [about Iran-contra] despite repeated requests. . . . " Walsh argued that some of these notes would have had to be furnished to Weinberger. They could have led not only to President Bush being called as a witness but to his prosecution for perjury. "In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to Congress and obstructed an official investigation."
Of course, perjury in bimbogate is much more threatening to our Constitutional system of government than perjury in Iran-contra. And Bill Clinton's vast coverup conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the matter is far more heinous. Congress sure has its priorities down on Iran-Contra versus bimbogate. I mean, which is worse, selling arms to terrorists or the President being evasive about some stupid sexual escapade? Which one had people getting killed? Oh, I forgot about Vince Foster.
I will add a line for Mr. Vaughn, so he doesn't have to respond in his usual objective and factual matter. Walsh was a stooge of O'Neill and Wright, so unlike the impartial, nonpartisan Ken Starr. Anyone reading the Starr report can see this is obviously the "truth", and to argue otherwise is just feelings and emotions. |
