Speaker 1: Officer. I know you found that half empty forty in
Speaker 1: the center console of my car, but my heart tells
Speaker 1: me I haven't been drinking tonight. You know, I obeyed
Speaker 1: the speed limit at all times. I wasn't going sixteen
Speaker 1: to fifty, say, or.
Speaker 2: As drunk people often do, they're going like twenty five
Speaker 2: in a sixty. Hey everyone, I'm at Helms and this
Speaker 2: is Snaffo, the show about history's greatest screw ups. It's
Speaker 2: part chat show, part history lesson, and a big old
Speaker 2: group therapy session for all of humanity. We're back for
Speaker 2: part two of the Iran contra Affair with our incredible
Speaker 2: guest Robert Evans. Now, if you haven't heard the previous episode,
Speaker 2: I strongly suggest you jump back and listen to that episode,
Speaker 2: and then jump forward again to this moment right now
Speaker 2: and jump back into this episode, because we are going
Speaker 2: to wrap up our incredible recounting of the Iran contra affair.
Speaker 2: Robert Evans, of course, is the host of the incredible
Speaker 2: podcast Behind the Bastards, which I highly recommend tons of
Speaker 2: incredible episodes. The best two episodes are the ones on
Speaker 2: which I was a guest.
Speaker 1: Also on that podcast, we should certainly check out the
Speaker 1: one on Curtis Jarvin that you guessed it for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a fun one. That was a particularly
Speaker 2: interesting one. Robert, thank you so much for coming back.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 2: I am going to give a quick recap for our audience,
Speaker 2: just in case there's been a little gap in time.
Speaker 2: So here's what went down before we move on. It's
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties. Reagan was president and quite simply, he
Speaker 2: hated Commis, like he really hated them. So he funded
Speaker 2: paramilitaries in Nicaragua called the Contras through the CIA in
Speaker 2: the hopes that they would defeat the Kami government run
Speaker 2: by the socialist group the Sandinies. Does Separately, the US
Speaker 2: imposed and embargo on Iran due to their support of
Speaker 2: the group Hezbolah, a US designated terrorist group that had
Speaker 2: taken twenty five Americans hostage in nineteen eighty four. To
Speaker 2: save those hostages, Reagan's National Security Council guys, including Lieutenant
Speaker 2: Oliver North, secretly decided to trade weapons in exchange for
Speaker 2: some cash and the release of said hostages. Pretty dodgy,
Speaker 2: especially considering that there was once again a literal embargo
Speaker 2: against Iran.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that we applied a status to Iran that was
Speaker 1: these guys, we absolutely shouldn't be selling missiles too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was there, that was their legal status.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could sell this up as hey, we're never
Speaker 2: ever going to sell missiles to Iran, but also Iran,
Speaker 2: do you guys want some missiles? Right? Yeah, sure. Iran
Speaker 2: was all so at war with Iraq and they needed
Speaker 2: weapons for this war. Oh yeah, And they had in
Speaker 2: fact secretly reached out to the US to ask if
Speaker 2: they could buy some weapons off us, and the answer,
Speaker 2: of course should have been no, we're not dealing with you.
Speaker 2: There's an embargo going on. But Ali North and his
Speaker 2: bosses at the National Security Council saw an opportunity here.
Speaker 2: They wanted to win for Reagan, i e. They wanted
Speaker 2: to free some hostages and to avoid another Carter esque snafu,
Speaker 2: so they decided to go ahead and make a deal
Speaker 2: with the Iranians. They would secretly sell weapons to the
Speaker 2: Iranians on the condition that American hostages in Lebanon would
Speaker 2: be released.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, it's and people we don't talk enough about
Speaker 1: the Iran Iraq war, like just so that people know
Speaker 1: this is like a World War two like t kind
Speaker 1: of conflict in terms of you've got these mass human
Speaker 1: wave rges like particularly that like Iran is doing because
Speaker 1: they have they lack so much else in terms of
Speaker 1: military infrastructure, and these huge tank battles that very much
Speaker 1: are like something out of the Second World War, and
Speaker 1: hideous casualty numbers in the US. By the way, we
Speaker 1: are heavily involved in both sides. We kind of helped
Speaker 1: push Saddam in the early stages of the war. We
Speaker 1: provided like targeting assistance and whatnot for him, and obviously
Speaker 1: we're about to do that for Iran. This is such
Speaker 1: a messy time and history for us in such a
Speaker 1: horrible war that doesn't get covered enough.
Speaker 2: Amen. I find it interesting the you know, in a
Speaker 2: situation like this, you know, there's clearly political motivation to
Speaker 2: sort of protect Reagan from another you know, from the
Speaker 2: fallout of a hostage situation. But then of course there's
Speaker 2: the very human concern for these hostages and the predicament
Speaker 2: that they're in, right, And I again, this is sort
Speaker 2: of getting back to one of my earlier questions, but like,
Speaker 2: is it possible to parse the motives here? You know, like,
Speaker 2: is it is this more about the political machinations. Uh,
Speaker 2: and and sort of protect protecting Reagan's political re election possibilities,
Speaker 2: or is it we got to get these Americans home?
Speaker 2: And again, it's some of both, some of both, And
Speaker 2: the more cynical side of me is like, maybe it's
Speaker 2: more about the political.
Speaker 1: I think at the at the at the level of
Speaker 1: like Alie North and certainly like people in the Reagan
Speaker 1: White House, it's it's mostly politics, but you have a
Speaker 1: lot of people involved at different levels, and including folks
Speaker 1: who like know some of the people who have been
Speaker 1: taken of course, and so there's absolutely folks who are
Speaker 1: involved in this too. Who's primary or at least a
Speaker 1: major concern just like, well, but my buddies captive too.
Speaker 2: And do you think the American military has an incredible
Speaker 2: track record of just going after our own and and
Speaker 2: and like you know fighting you know this recent Uh,
Speaker 2: it's important from what's that It's I wasn't from morale, right, Well, sure, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right, but yeah, this extraction from Iran that just
Speaker 2: happened a month or two ago was an incredible, incredible
Speaker 2: story and does speak to it. I think is a
Speaker 2: is a pretty beautiful ethos in American general disposition, but
Speaker 2: certainly our military disposition of like we don't we leave
Speaker 2: no one behind, we go back and get people.
Speaker 1: It's this it's interesting because like the you also have
Speaker 1: around this time, these these conspiracy theories about like soldiers
Speaker 1: left behind in Vietnam that really, certainly by by seventy
Speaker 1: nine was not accurate, Like there weren't huge numbers of
Speaker 1: Americans like in captivity in Vietnam, like they would have
Speaker 1: had nothing to benefit from just keeping those guys. But
Speaker 1: because there is this attitude, this deeply, especially among for
Speaker 1: former servicemen, that like, we don't leave people behind, the
Speaker 1: belief that there were all these guys still trapped in
Speaker 1: Vietnam is in this period of time a huge political
Speaker 1: like football, right, Like it's a thing that that is
Speaker 1: like massively important to a lot of people just because like,
Speaker 1: even though it's not accurate that those guys are there,
Speaker 1: because the idea that people were left behind was so
Speaker 1: offensive to some right.
Speaker 2: Right, all right, Well, let's jump a couple of years
Speaker 2: later to the fall of nineteen eighty six, and we're
Speaker 2: actually now we're going to go back to Nicaragua. So
Speaker 2: in October of that year, a US military plane was
Speaker 2: shot down in Nicaragua. The lone survivor of this plane
Speaker 2: being shot down admitted to the Santinistas that he was
Speaker 2: delivering weapons to the Contras for the CIA.
Speaker 1: Ooops.
Speaker 2: Then a month later, a Lebanese magazine Al Shira got
Speaker 2: a scoop that the US had been secretly selling missiles
Speaker 2: to Iran for the release of American hostages. And by
Speaker 2: the way, only three hostages had actually been released. So
Speaker 2: the efficacy of this whole scheme is like, what is
Speaker 2: very much in question?
Speaker 1: What did I never did know the ratio of like
Speaker 1: missiles to guys we were getting that.
Speaker 2: I actually don't know, my head. I don't think it
Speaker 2: was good because I'm assuming that they said a lot
Speaker 2: of missile a lot of missiles. Anyway, this is quite
Speaker 2: a one two punch, right, this down pilot confessing to
Speaker 2: the Sandinistas that the CIA is helping the Contras, and
Speaker 2: then of course this article coming out in a Lebanese
Speaker 2: magazine basically exposing that that scandal. So in response, Reagan
Speaker 2: did what he was best at. He got on TV
Speaker 2: and on November thirteenth, he addressed America from the White
Speaker 2: House and we actually have a little audio clip to
Speaker 2: play from that press conference. Here.
Speaker 3: Now, my fellow Americans, there's an old saying that nothing
Speaker 3: spread so quickly as a rumor. So I thought it
Speaker 3: was time to speak with you directly, to tell you
Speaker 3: firsthand about our dealings with Iran, just.
Speaker 2: A little little taste of it, but I'll tell you later.
Speaker 2: In the video, Reagan says he wasn't doing any backdoor
Speaker 2: trades with Iran. He says, we did not, repeat did
Speaker 2: not trade weapons or anything else for hostages. So I
Speaker 2: had to work in my Reagan voice, that voice you
Speaker 2: very much. But he does say explicitly, we did not
Speaker 2: trade weapons or anything else.
Speaker 1: Clear.
Speaker 2: Cross couldn't have been clear more clear, of course. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: it turns out straight up lying doesn't put an end
Speaker 2: to things, and soon it will be revealed that these
Speaker 2: scandals actually had a lot to do with each other.
Speaker 2: Once all of this starts leaking, Reagan's attorney general, a
Speaker 2: man by the name of Edwin mess steps in to
Speaker 2: figure out just what the heck is going on here.
Speaker 2: Uh So, a couple of weeks after this, after this
Speaker 2: presidential address, on November twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six, MEAs
Speaker 2: goes on TV to the nation. And here's where things
Speaker 2: get a little wild. Mees confirms that, yes, the US
Speaker 2: had actually been selling weapons secretly to Iran, and yes
Speaker 2: the US had been backing the contras in Nicaragua. But
Speaker 2: then he drops the real bombshell. These were not separate operations.
Speaker 2: They were the same operation. What Yes, because Edwin Meaes
Speaker 2: had found what is known as the Diversion Memo in
Speaker 2: Oliver North's office. Now, this memo showed that money from
Speaker 2: those secret arm sales to Iran wasn't just sitting around,
Speaker 2: It was being funneled off the books to fund the contras.
Speaker 2: So suddenly what looked like two different scandals snaps into
Speaker 2: focus as one tangled scheme. Attorney General Meaes also had
Speaker 2: another very important point to make at this press conference,
Speaker 2: and that was that President Reagan did not know about
Speaker 2: any of this. Of course, he was completely in the dark,
Speaker 2: totally inno set of any wrongdoing. So me press conference
Speaker 2: is kind of like a confession and a cleanup all
Speaker 2: at the exact same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a remarkable line to try to cross
Speaker 1: of like, well, we have to admit to breaking the
Speaker 1: law that the President said that we absolutely didn't do.
Speaker 1: And also these two things that we said weren't connected
Speaker 1: or connected but the president didn't know. But also he's
Speaker 1: still a good president. He just didn't know. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, does does does a scandal that goes from
Speaker 2: two bad things to one incredibly complicated, big bad thing
Speaker 2: make it better or more efficient, more impressive? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like this feels like the usual Suspects
Speaker 2: moment where he's just like, oh, yes, yeah, Kobayashi, I
Speaker 2: get it. He is kaiser SoSE and we all feel
Speaker 2: kind of smart and dumb at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what we expect from a president. Like it feels
Speaker 1: a lot like it's it's declined over the last couple
Speaker 1: of decades rapidly, but also like the I guess it's
Speaker 1: just shocking to me the degree to which a lot
Speaker 1: of people, including people who really liked Reagan, were willing
Speaker 1: to convince themselves well, he can't even though there's literally
Speaker 1: no way this could have happened without Reagan's sign off.
Speaker 1: He must not have really known. Like the amount of
Speaker 1: slack that that he was given for this has always
Speaker 1: really surprised me. I've never understood it.
Speaker 2: Well, were we will believe what we want to believe. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: Like we're just so much of our what we think
Speaker 2: is our rational analysis is just motivated reasoning. Yep uh.
Speaker 2: And I think you're that's a prime example of it.
Speaker 2: Do you remember what what Saturday Night Li was doing
Speaker 2: at this time? They had a they had a brilliant
Speaker 2: ongoing series of sketches in which Phil Hartman played Reagan,
Speaker 2: and and they really played with this dichotomy of him
Speaker 2: being perceived it just as just this sort of like,
Speaker 2: you know, real friendly, just kind of cowboy who was
Speaker 2: a nice to everybody but a little bit kind of
Speaker 2: maybe clueless, but that's okay because he's doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: His heart's in the right place. And so they'd have
Speaker 2: these scenes with Phil Hartman, you know, like doing a
Speaker 2: photo op with a girl scout troop or something cute,
Speaker 2: and then he'd kind of usher them out of the
Speaker 2: Oval office and then he'd be like get in here, everybody,
Speaker 2: and he'd pull in all the everyone to sit them
Speaker 2: down and pull down a map of Iran or wherever
Speaker 2: and be like okay, barking orders and everybody, and just
Speaker 2: sort of highlighting that extreme dichotomy of of like the
Speaker 2: performance of a kind of like a guy who hey,
Speaker 2: he got sort of taken for a ride on this
Speaker 2: whole Iran.
Speaker 1: Memory is not great, but his heart's in the right place.
Speaker 1: And then this like blood soaked mad man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go back and watch these old Phil Hartman Reagan sketches.
Speaker 2: They're incredible and they're very sort of emblematic of this moment.
Speaker 2: So Edwin Mess's press conference turned out to be one
Speaker 2: of those classic moments of trying to put out a
Speaker 2: fire by throwing gasoline on it. He sent Congress completely
Speaker 2: spinning out. They're like, wait, wait, wait, what this was
Speaker 2: one giant conspiracy. We got to get to the bottom
Speaker 2: of this. This is way worse. Yeah. Also worth noting
Speaker 2: that Mes and Reagan were old pals, So it's pretty
Speaker 2: crazy to think that an attorney general appointed by a
Speaker 2: president could do a thorough job of investigating his boss, right, Yeah, Naturally,
Speaker 2: everyone in Washington immediately spun into investigative overdrive. The House
Speaker 2: launched an investigation, the Senate launched an investigation. Reagan, not
Speaker 2: to be outdone, also appointed a commission led by ex
Speaker 2: Senator John Tower, to investigate, and just for good measure,
Speaker 2: he brought in independent special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh to investigate
Speaker 2: and bring charges. Now, Robert, when everyone is investigating everyone
Speaker 2: else this hard? Is that due diligence or just like
Speaker 2: a kind of Shakespearean level of thou dost protest too much?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's like ass covering on a grand scale. Especially,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I guess it's I'm sure because like
Speaker 1: you do want some of those investigations seem like they're appropriate, right,
Speaker 1: Like Congress investigating the president seems like it's something that's
Speaker 1: Congress ought to be doing. The President having his own
Speaker 1: investigation into like what his guys were doing is a
Speaker 1: lot of like we're gonna make sure the Foxes really
Speaker 1: get a good line on what's happening in this hen house,
Speaker 1: you know, like that that that strikes me as fucky
Speaker 1: just this year volume.
Speaker 2: I mean, it starts to feel like, uh, like layers
Speaker 2: upon layers of nothing to see here, right, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just it we're all investigating so hard that you
Speaker 2: can no longer see through the.
Speaker 1: Mess, right, And and it's also like you don't need
Speaker 1: to look like nobody else needs to be looking like
Speaker 1: we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Keep an eye on this.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, like the truth will come out for sure.
Speaker 2: We've got it there.
Speaker 1: We got this.
Speaker 2: All right. So a few months later, in February of
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, the Tower Commission released the report, confirming
Speaker 2: what the Diversion Memo said and stating that the National
Speaker 2: Security Council needed reforms after acting far too independently of Congress. Okay,
Speaker 2: the level of criminal law breaking in the NSC had
Speaker 2: become so undeniable that Reagan gave his follow up to
Speaker 2: his earlier statement. And I'll forego my Reagan imitation this time,
Speaker 2: just to get this language across. He said. A few
Speaker 2: months ago, I told the American people I did not
Speaker 2: trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions
Speaker 2: still tell me that's true, But the facts and the
Speaker 2: evidence tell me it is not.
Speaker 1: Amazing amazing sentence.
Speaker 2: How incredible is that language?
Speaker 1: I mean, you've been in more than a few writers room.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine how long it took to break that line?
Speaker 1: Because Reagan wasn't writing that himself. Like, there was a
Speaker 1: room full of guys up until like four in the morning,
Speaker 1: being like, how do we put all this in a sentence?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is not just a word salad. This is
Speaker 2: like a word salad bar. It is a full on
Speaker 2: buffet of words scrambled up into some what's supposed to
Speaker 2: be delicious, but it's still kind of leaving a terrible
Speaker 2: taste in your mouth. I just want to go back
Speaker 2: to this. My heart and my best intentions still tell
Speaker 2: me that's true. But still tell me this thing that
Speaker 2: I said to you, it's not true. But the facts
Speaker 2: and the evidence. In other words, he's externalizing this. He's
Speaker 2: not saying like my own analysis of what I said
Speaker 2: is revealing that I lied to you. He's saying that
Speaker 2: these other things, these facts, and this evidence, are telling
Speaker 2: me that what I told you before it's not true. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an officer, I know you found that half empty
Speaker 1: four in the center console of my car, But my
Speaker 1: heart tells me I haven't been drinking tonight.
Speaker 2: You know, And my best intentions tell me that that
Speaker 2: doesn't even exist, that he's not even there slashing around
Speaker 2: in the back seat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I obeyed. I obeyed the speed limit at
Speaker 1: all times. I wasn't going sixteen to fifteen exactly.
Speaker 2: Or as drunk people often do. They're going like twenty
Speaker 2: five in a sixties two all right. In July of
Speaker 2: this year, Oliver North and other members involved in the
Speaker 2: Iran Contra affair testified before Congress in live televised hearings
Speaker 2: as part of both the Senate and House led investigations.
Speaker 2: What came out led to wave after wave of indictments
Speaker 2: from Lawrence Walsh against Oliver North, John Poindexter, and others
Speaker 2: who had clearly been involved. One of the most insane
Speaker 2: reveals was that while Meese had claimed to be investigating
Speaker 2: the NSC's activities, he had actually given Oliver North and
Speaker 2: John Poindexter a heads up that he would be coming by,
Speaker 2: and this gave Oliver North enough time to host a
Speaker 2: quote paper shredding party and destroy or alter thousands of
Speaker 2: pages of documents before Meese and his team could collect them. Now,
Speaker 2: this that is the actual language that had a party
Speaker 2: shredding party. What does calling it a shredding party due
Speaker 2: to the way we hear something like that, because it's
Speaker 2: very different from destroying evidence. It is a it is
Speaker 2: a shredding party.
Speaker 1: I think it sounds worse because that just sounds like
Speaker 1: you're deliberately, like you are thumbing your nose at any
Speaker 1: idea of accountability right as opposed to like, well, we
Speaker 1: had a crime party, and I'd be like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you did commit some crimes, but at least you're saying.
Speaker 2: It right, I think it. But I do think in
Speaker 2: this way that like language is powerful and it sort
Speaker 2: of sets us sets a tone that this was sort
Speaker 2: of a casual thing and not that big a deal,
Speaker 2: but it was such a big deal a deal. North's
Speaker 2: shredding spree didn't erase the scandal, of course, but it
Speaker 2: erased enough of the paper trail to keep the full
Speaker 2: story just out of reach. The diversion mimo exposed the
Speaker 2: basic scheme, but anything that might have clearly implicated higher ups,
Speaker 2: like for example, Ronald Reagan, well that stuff was gone.
Speaker 2: So all of this came out in the congressional investigations.
Speaker 2: North and Poindexter got their come upances, and justice was
Speaker 2: served right right.
Speaker 1: In the same way that like, if the mafia appoints
Speaker 1: a fall guy to take the pin for like a crime,
Speaker 1: then like was justice several Yeah, that guy did something right,
Speaker 1: but there's other guys that aren't getting Well.
Speaker 2: Here's the best part, because it's even like the accountability
Speaker 2: is even worse than you think. I mean, that's part
Speaker 2: of the that's part of the beauty of snafu is
Speaker 2: that is that ability is just this ephemeral co word.
Speaker 2: It doesn't actually apply to anything. Remember, there are multiple
Speaker 2: simultaneous investigations going on here. In a way, they unintentionally
Speaker 2: undermined each other, which all became sort of its own snafoo. So,
Speaker 2: despite the fact that Walsh brought charges against Oliver North
Speaker 2: and Poindexter and other members of the National Security Council,
Speaker 2: Congress had already offered North and Poindexter immunity from charges
Speaker 2: in exchange for their testimony. So that meant that eleven
Speaker 2: individuals were found guilty in either carrying out the plot
Speaker 2: or in trying to slow down the investigations, but not
Speaker 2: Oliver North or Poindexter, or whether or not they were
Speaker 2: found guilty, they were they got off complete lyst got
Speaker 2: free due to their immunity. Make this make sense to me?
Speaker 2: It seems fair to me.
Speaker 1: I mean the senses that, like, the people running the
Speaker 1: government really wanted to do this and they didn't want
Speaker 1: their their friends to get in trouble for breaking the law,
Speaker 1: right Like, that's that's the sense. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: so different than the way things work now. Like, it's
Speaker 1: the it's the problem with investing people with power like
Speaker 1: this and then having the accountability also be them, right, Like, ideally,
Speaker 1: I get what we were the founding fathers. We're trying
Speaker 1: to do with a separation of powers, and there's a
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of wisdom in there. It
Speaker 1: worked out in some ways for a while, but maybe
Speaker 1: we need like another separate power, like a guy who
Speaker 1: like doesn't have any other power, but if the president's
Speaker 1: like fucking up, he can like sprits him with like
Speaker 1: like you know, a little pepper water, right, like you
Speaker 1: would with like a like a misbehaving cat or something
Speaker 1: like that. Right, Yeah, Like the guy whose job is
Speaker 1: to like hold the president to account, some dude who
Speaker 1: can Who's Who's Who's like an appointed law enforcement type
Speaker 1: thing representing the people whose job is to make sure
Speaker 1: that shit like this doesn't happen. But we'll never do that, right,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, because nobody in power would want that to happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not a legal theorist, but I
Speaker 2: would love to kind of hear from a legal expert
Speaker 2: some of the theory behind offering immunity to people for
Speaker 2: their testimony. It seems like a fair trade. But then
Speaker 2: you open yourself up to these situations where the person
Speaker 2: you just offered immunity to might have committed like such
Speaker 2: a more horrendous crime than you ever even realized. And
Speaker 2: maybe you got some evidence to help you in this
Speaker 2: other area, but not. Yeah, and in this case, it's
Speaker 2: eleven people lower on the totem pole that got you know,
Speaker 2: raked across the coals, locked over it, And was that
Speaker 2: worth it? Like, was that a worthy trade off to
Speaker 2: get those people busted if the ring leaders are getting off.
Speaker 1: I think it's a reasonable concept offering immunity in a
Speaker 1: situation where like, for example, you're going after like an
Speaker 1: organized crime ring and you have some guys that you've caught,
Speaker 1: you know, doing street level dealing or like pimping or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they're kind of like street level criminals who are
Speaker 1: willing to roll on their bosses. You offer themmunity to
Speaker 1: the lower crimes you can get the bigger. This is
Speaker 1: kind of opposite where like your your exonerating base, or
Speaker 1: you're giving immunity to the guys nearer to the top
Speaker 1: in order to fuck the people at the bottom who
Speaker 1: didn't really make much of it, like who weren't like
Speaker 1: the power players.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it seems like it seems like you want
Speaker 2: to be real savvy about who you're offering immunity to,
Speaker 2: Like if you like I would have and I don't know,
Speaker 2: not knowing what those eleven people were specifically, you know,
Speaker 2: charged with, I still my feeling is I feel like
Speaker 2: I would have rather given all of them immunity than
Speaker 2: to in order to bust Oliver North and Poindexter. Right,
Speaker 2: then the other way around.
Speaker 1: It would almost be like if years from now now
Speaker 1: we get like criminal prosecutions as a result of like
Speaker 1: the doze stuff that was happening, and they like give
Speaker 1: immunity to to Big Balls or whoever his name was,
Speaker 1: that was like stealing people's data in order to bust
Speaker 1: like a security guard who like improperly.
Speaker 2: Didn't lock up one night. Well, that doesn't seem right exactly.
Speaker 2: There's a crazy case where a guy was accused of
Speaker 2: murder and uh and someone who was there was given
Speaker 2: immunity to testify, and once he was given immunity, he
Speaker 2: claimed to have committed the murder, which was which was
Speaker 2: pretty demonstrably untrue but it enabled the actual murderer to
Speaker 2: get off the hook. That's really funny, isn't that wild. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like these are these are sort of unwieldy things
Speaker 2: when we unleash them out there. So, even after this
Speaker 2: whole media circuit ended, new evidence was still leading to
Speaker 2: new revelations and new trials well into the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: During George HW. Bush's presidency, they revealed that many of
Speaker 2: the National Security Council members who testified before the Congressional
Speaker 2: committees had committed perjury by lying and making false statements
Speaker 2: in their testimony attempting to cover up what had really happened.
Speaker 2: I mean, damn you. You can't trust anybody. So in fact,
Speaker 2: some previously hidden notes revealed that Bush himself was involved
Speaker 2: in the scheme as vice president. He of course was
Speaker 2: Reagan's vice president, but in one of his last acts
Speaker 2: as president, George H. W. Bush pardoned everyone involved before
Speaker 2: further trials could reveal anything more incriminating.
Speaker 1: Well, probably nothing to look into there, Yeah, nothing.
Speaker 2: You can do. Accountability not not just not not a thing.
Speaker 1: No, And I don't think that was the purpose of
Speaker 1: presidential pardons when they started being a thing. But that
Speaker 1: certainly seems to be where we've what we've zeroed in
Speaker 1: on is the best reason to have presidential pardons is
Speaker 1: to like keep your cronies from getting in trouble.
Speaker 2: Amen. Now, it's it's really interesting. I haven't dug into
Speaker 2: this this aspect enough, but there are a lot of
Speaker 2: people who still to this day think Ali North was
Speaker 2: a hero and that some of these things that they
Speaker 2: were undertaking were were for the best reasons, and that
Speaker 2: they were effectively Obviously they were breaking the law, and
Speaker 2: they were violating congressional mandates and so forth, but they
Speaker 2: were doing so with the right motives and the right intentions,
Speaker 2: and that really all of their law breaking could be
Speaker 2: categorized as just cutting through the red tape to get
Speaker 2: something done.
Speaker 1: I was raised to believe that. Yeah, it was very
Speaker 1: much how my my family taught me about it. Like
Speaker 1: when I first heard about Iran contra, it was described
Speaker 1: to me as like unfortunate, and some people botched some
Speaker 1: aspects of it, but it was the only option available
Speaker 1: to them. And like, you know, when you're the president,
Speaker 1: you have to make tough decisions like illegally trading missiles
Speaker 1: to a country we're not supposed to trade missiles, do
Speaker 1: you know? But it was very much like Oliver North
Speaker 1: was a hero in my house as a kid, right
Speaker 1: like that, That was exactly how I was raised to
Speaker 1: think about this.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's so fascinating really, it really is just
Speaker 2: kind of depends on where you're standing, the way the
Speaker 2: way that we look at these things, that is the
Speaker 2: tangled knot of the Iran Contra affair. Any larger takeaways,
Speaker 2: Robert Evans, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, I think my takeaway from Iran Contra is my
Speaker 1: same honestly very similar to my takeaway with Watergate and
Speaker 1: to a number of like presidential scandals that we've had
Speaker 1: over the last fifty or so years, which is that
Speaker 1: when you like repeatedly make it clear that there aren't
Speaker 1: consequences for law breaking at this level in American politics,
Speaker 1: that if the president says or does it, it can't
Speaker 1: be a crime. And if the president orders people to
Speaker 1: do it, or if people are working towards the you know,
Speaker 1: what the president told them he wanted and they commit crimes,
Speaker 1: then that's okay, and that there's accepted ways to smooth
Speaker 1: over that and ensure that people don't face punishment for
Speaker 1: what they did. That's why we're where we are today. Like,
Speaker 1: all this just begats greater and greater levels of corruption
Speaker 1: and greater senses of impunity by these actors who already
Speaker 1: just kind of by default, by the fact that they're
Speaker 1: working in the West wing, they're working for the president,
Speaker 1: have a degree of legal immunity, right, that is conferred
Speaker 1: to them just by the fact that, like that's how
Speaker 1: you know, we do things in our system of government.
Speaker 1: And when you take away any chance at any level
Speaker 1: of law breaking, getting them in trouble, it leads inevitably
Speaker 1: to further reaches and to further crimes, and to worse crimes.
Speaker 2: And I think if.
Speaker 1: We learn any less and from this, if we learn
Speaker 1: any lesson from the last eight years, twelve years almost
Speaker 1: by twenty twenty eight, it'll have been twelve years, right,
Speaker 1: the lesson that we ought to learn is that you
Speaker 1: can't just let people get away with crimes and corruption
Speaker 1: because they got elected. That's like a really bad way
Speaker 1: to run a country. I think that's my stance as
Speaker 1: a as a left wing radical.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and there has to be a sort of
Speaker 2: an understanding or a commitment to the idea that these
Speaker 2: laws are oftentimes inconvenient and annoying and frustrating for those
Speaker 2: in power, but we need to follow them anyway because
Speaker 2: it will gradually keep eroding. And we've were I think
Speaker 2: we're there. We're in a deeply eroded place. Obviously now,
Speaker 2: I mean, Aroan Contra would never be considered a scandal
Speaker 2: in this moment, right, We're in a moment where you know,
Speaker 2: Trump is taking these sweeping foreign policy actions, both economically
Speaker 2: and militarily, without so much as a nod to Congress.
Speaker 2: And really, like I think Iran Contra can be boiled
Speaker 2: down to a sort of Congress versus executive branch standoff.
Speaker 2: That's really the sort of core of that. And what
Speaker 2: made it sort of what made it a scandal at
Speaker 2: the time is that Congress did set limits. In Congress
Speaker 2: was actually saying you can't do these things, this is
Speaker 2: too far, and there was an expectation that the executive
Speaker 2: branch had to follow the law. We're not there anymore.
Speaker 2: We're like, we're we're so far past that, and we're
Speaker 2: in a place where, like you said, because this president
Speaker 2: has been elected, he should be able to do whatever
Speaker 2: the heck he wants, and Congress, I'm so amazed, you know,
Speaker 2: at this Congress right now, who's completely abdicated their oversight,
Speaker 2: and they're especially with regards to war powers in Iran.
Speaker 2: Because even if you agree with Trump, even if you
Speaker 2: love all of this decisions he's making, Mike Johnson, you
Speaker 2: you still need to assert Congress's role in this process,
Speaker 2: and he just refuses to do so. It's like he's
Speaker 2: literally just smiling and saying, yeah, keep kicking me in
Speaker 2: the face. I love it, I love it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could go all day trying to like
Speaker 1: psychoanalyze like what's going on with Mike Johnson, But I
Speaker 1: think I think more than anything, it's this sense and
Speaker 1: you know, the imperial presidency. People trace back the history
Speaker 1: of that, and certainly Reagan has his role in the
Speaker 1: evolution of this like understanding of the presidency as a
Speaker 1: much stronger executive than previous generations would have like necessarily
Speaker 1: understood it to have been. But when you when you
Speaker 1: get in this situation where like the president is the
Speaker 1: voice of the party and also the voice of the
Speaker 1: American people because he was elected, and if he was elected,
Speaker 1: that means that like he's got a blank check to
Speaker 1: do whatever it provides an out to guys like Johnson
Speaker 1: where they're like, well, I'm not going to go against
Speaker 1: the American people. And I think that there's I think
Speaker 1: that there's tremendous cowardice in at the highest levels of
Speaker 1: power in this country. But I also just think that
Speaker 1: like it's in nobody's best interest at that level of
Speaker 1: power to actually like fight for a separation of powers,
Speaker 1: to fight for a reduction in the power of the
Speaker 1: imperial presidency, and to fight for like what's best for
Speaker 1: American citizens, because very much what's best for American citizens
Speaker 1: is not what's best for the people who are like
Speaker 1: close to the White House and hasn't been for a
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 2: Well said, Well said Robert Evans. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for trimming into this snaff who with me. It has
Speaker 2: been an absolute delight and I just love to hear
Speaker 2: how your brain works and breaks this stuff down. So
Speaker 2: thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It was lovely to talk with you. Ed, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. And yeah, happy to come on anytime and
Speaker 1: we'll have you back on Bastards in the future.
Speaker 2: All right, sounds good, great care. Oh hey, one more
Speaker 2: quick thing. This week, the UK paperback edition of my
Speaker 2: book snaff Fu is now on sale. You can find
Speaker 2: it at any UK book retailer. And I think that
Speaker 2: qualifies as Jolie good. Right, well, then I'm sorry. That
Speaker 2: was not necessary. I do not have a good British accident.
Speaker 2: It's not Maybe it maybe is like a touch better
Speaker 2: than Dick van Dyke, but barely. I mean, it's not. Sorry,
Speaker 2: Let's move on. If you're in the United States, you
Speaker 2: can still pick up a copy of the hardcover of
Speaker 2: my book and listen. It makes a great Father's Day
Speaker 2: gift if I do say so myself. In fact, it
Speaker 2: just makes a great gift anytime if you want to say, like, hey,
Speaker 2: I like you, I think you're cool, or hey, I
Speaker 2: think you're really smart and you could probably dig some
Speaker 2: of these really smart stories, or hey, you're a big
Speaker 2: Ed Helms fan, maybe you would like this book that
Speaker 2: he wrote. Anyway, whatever the reason, there's so many great
Speaker 2: reasons to give people gifts and just tell them show
Speaker 2: them that you care about them, and this book is
Speaker 2: perfect for that. So I'll drop some links in the
Speaker 2: show notes for easy purchasing and thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffo Media,
Speaker 2: a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company.
Speaker 2: Post production and creative support from good Egg Audio. Our
Speaker 2: executive producers are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner,
Speaker 2: Andy Kim, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Alyssa Martino and Tory Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis.
Speaker 2: Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering
Speaker 2: from Nick Dooley. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis. Our
Speaker 2: creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by Matt
Speaker 2: Gosson and the Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welsh,
Speaker 2: Meghan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham,
Speaker 2: Adam Horn, Lane Kline and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but
Speaker 2: especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman and Nikki Ator. While I
Speaker 2: have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of
Speaker 2: my book, Snaffoo, The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups.
Speaker 2: It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to
Speaker 2: Snaffoo dashbook dot com. Thanks for listening, and see you
Speaker 2: next week.