The United States since 1980

Every administration has its share of scandals. There are always people who will abuse power. But the number of scandals that shake an administration to its core – that involve the president and actually bring its survival into question – is relatively small. The Iran-Contra scandal, which was exposed in the last two years of the Reagan administration, fits the bill. It directly involved two top cabinet officers (the secretary of state and the secretary of defense), the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and two of President Reagan's national security advisors.

While President Reagan's personal knowledge of illegal conduct may never be known, it is clear that he was aware of the broad outlines of a plan that sought to subvert the law as passed by Congress and signed by the president. In assessing the case for impeaching President Reagan, Lawrence Walsh, the special prosecutor appointed in the case, noted that “President Reagan created the conditions which made possible the crimes committed by others by his secret deviations from announced national policy as to Iran and hostages and by his open determination to keep the contras together ‘body and soul’ despite a statutory ban on Contra aid.” However, he concluded that a case could not be made for impeachment because, “fundamentally, it could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that President Reagan knew of the underlying facts of Iran-Contra that were criminal or that he made criminal misrepresentations regarding them.