Oliver North

Fall guy.

How accurate is the song from American Dad?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lFV1uT-ihDo

>>573529
Its not really high treason, but yeah it was pretty bad.

>>573536
How come? I'm not big on my American constitution.

>>573587

High treason is generally a term reserved for acts that explicitly try to overthrow the government.

>>573587
congress said no, it was undemocratic

>>573440
Why not both?

>>573600
Ah I see, so what would it be called then? Just plain treason?

>>573587
You don't need to be. When your government says, "We ain't going to war with <Group A>." and "<Group B> are terrorists who we will not negotiate with."... And then some guy is part of a plot to sell arms to <Group B> to pay for a secret war with <Group A>. That guy commited treason, regardless of which constitution you're under.

>>573618
There is no such thing as "high treason" in US law, there is only "treason." That is defined as:

>Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

I guess it's up to you to decide whether selling weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose proxy (Hezbollah) was currently holding US hostages, constitutes giving an enemy "aid and comfort."

The actual charges North and co. were brought up on were things like obstruction of justice, perjury, and so on, because they effectively concealed the evidence for their involvement (so most of the charges were about concealing the evidence, not about the Iran-Contra acts as such).

If this had happened today, some of them might have been brought up on material support for terrorism charges, but those didn't exist before the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001.