Roberts and the Ghost of Iran-Contra

The Washington Post reports that during his time in the Reagan Administration John Roberts offered advice on the establishment of the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO), an organization used by the Reagan Administration to circumvent the Boland Amendment.

For those of you who don't remember, the Boland Amendment made it illegal for U.S. intelligence agencies to provide covert funding to the contras in Nicaragua. John Poindexter and Oliver North attempted to get around this prohibition by diverting millions of dollars to the contras through a secret deal-- approved by the President-- which sold anti-tank and anti-aircraft missles to Iran. Poindexter and North then funneled the money to the contras.

The NHAO was formed within the State Department to provide what was, at least on the surface, legitimate humanitarian assistance to Nicaragua; Oliver North, however, used it to send money and supplies that the CIA couldn't send directly. Put another way, he used the NHAO as a cover for illegal covert funding for the contras in violation of federal law.

We do not know what Roberts' role was in any of this. For example, he might simply have been asked to set up the NHAO for purely humanitarian purposes and then North infilitrated and twisted the organization for his own illegal ends. If so, there's nothing in the file on the NHAO that should be problematic for Roberts. He simply did what any good lawyer would do for his client.

On the other hand, if Roberts was asked to justify circumventing the Boland Amendment in any way, he would have been a hitherto unknown part of the Iran-Contra scandal. If that were so, it would be inappropriate for someone who had participated in fomenting a serious constitutional scandal to be rewarded with a Supreme Court appointment.

The Democrats obviously want to know what is in those files; the Bush Adminstration doesn't want anyone to know. At the very least the senators should ask Judge Roberts for his recollections, to the extent that he can provide them.