Word: boland
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...quickly submerged by the President's insistence that he had been only dimly aware of what his lieutenants had been doing to aid the contras. Once the congressional hearings started, however, that pretense could not be maintained. Witness after witness described what appeared to be clear violations of the Boland amendment and indicated that Reagan had been deeply involved in the efforts to help the contras...
...Administration is stipulating that it did indeed support the contra cause but that this was well within the bounds of the shifting congressional restrictions that existed between 1983 and 1986. Thus the very real moral and political questions about a secret policy that was clearly designed to thwart the Boland amendment has temporarily given way to a trickier legal dispute: Exactly what did that amendment and other laws forbid, and to whom did they apply...
...Boland amendment went through several congressional rewrites (see chart). Originally it forbade any expenditures "for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua." Then it placed a $24 million limit on aid to "military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua." The most restrictive version, in effect from October 1984 to December 1985, stated that "no funds available" to the CIA, the Defense Department or any "entity of the U.S. involved in intelligence activities" could be used "directly or indirectly" to support the contras...
...would put the President above the law. Says Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe: "Congress's control over the purse would be rendered a nullity if the President's pocket could conceal a slush fund dedicated to purposes and projects prohibited by the laws of the U.S." Democratic Congressman Edward Boland observed that if Reagan wanted to claim exemption from the amendment, he should have done so when it was enacted. Instead, Boland noted, Reagan signed the bill without any public comment...
...Boland amendment apply to the National Security Council? The White House contends that the NSC does not fit the definition of an "entity engaged in intelligence activities." A secret opinion by the President's Intelligence Oversight Board took this approach in 1985. Former Watergate Prosecutor Philip Lacovara agrees that if Congress intended the amendment to apply to "other than those persons connected with official intelligence agencies, it could and should have said so." But many experts agree with Tribe that NSC officials were clearly "acting as intelligence agents." Even Robert McFarlane testified that it was his "common-sense judgment" that...