They Shredded the Evidence as Investigators Closed In

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]The scandal broke in November 1986 when a Lebanese newspaper published reports of the arms sales.

[00:00:07]Within weeks, North and his secretary Fawn Hall were feeding documents into a shredder at the White House. Not metaphorically, literally standing at a shredder destroying evidence as investigators closed in.

[00:00:21]Hall later testified that she helped alter documents and smuggled others out in her clothing.

[00:00:28]Attorney General Edwin Meese announced an investigation, but before the investigation could proceed, North shredded so many documents that the full scope of the operation may never be known.

[00:00:40]His own notebooks, which survived, detailed hundreds of meetings, transactions, and decisions. The gaps in the documentary record aren't accidental. They're the result of deliberate destruction between when the scandal broke and when investigators secured the evidence.

[00:00:58]So, what did President Reagan know? This is where the official narrative and the evidence diverge. The official position, Reagan approved the arms sales to Iran, but didn't know about the diversion of funds to the Contras. The Iran-Contra affair was a rogue operation run by overzealous staffers who exceeded their authority. The president was out of the loop on the illegal parts.

[00:01:24]Reagan's own testimony was, to put it mildly, vague. In his deposition for the trial of National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Reagan said, "I don't recall" or "I can't remember" 130 times.

[00:01:39]130 times. Either the president of the United States had a memory that would concern any neurologist, or he was carefully avoiding perjury.

[00:01:50]The evidence complicating this narrative is substantial. North's diaries reference multiple briefings with Reagan. Reagan's own diary, released years later, contains entries discussing the arms sales in detail.

[00:02:05]Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane testified that he briefed Reagan repeatedly.

[00:02:12]And the Tower Commission, Reagan's own investigative body, concluded that Reagan's management style created conditions where his staff felt empowered to act without explicit authorization, which is a polite way of saying he created plausible deniability.

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