MEESE BROUGHT IN FBI 4 DAYS AFTER KEY FINDING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605100012-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: December 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605100012-0
~;
Q~T~nI-~ ~~F~~~O 1 J WASHINGTON POST
~~ p".~'~~---..~ 5 December 1986
h :a
1~leese Brought In FBI
~ Days After K,ey Finding
~.By Walter Pin`ciis
~._a.,___.._.,,.w
and George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Wttttres
Attorney General Edwin Meese
III waited five days after the first
offer of help from the Federal Bu-
reau of Investigation and four days
after the discovery of a key docu-
ment indicating the possibility of
wrongdoing before bringing the bu-
reau into the investigation of funds
from Iranian arms sales that were
diverted to assist the Nicaraguan
contras.
FBf Director William H. Webster
said yesterday that Meese turned
down his routine offer of F$I help
on. Igor. Zl~ hours'after President
Reagan - iQStrurted -Meese to find
out all the facts behind the clandes-
tine sale of U.S. arms to the regime
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The next day, Meese and his
aides found a crucial National Se-
curity Council document that quick-
ly. led them to discover that funds
from the secret Iranian arm sales
had been diverted to the contras.
Webster said he did not learn of
Meese's discovery of that document
on Nov. 22 until the attorney gen-
oral announced it at his Nov. 25
news conference at the White
House.
The crucial NSC document
showed "that somebody had done
something that was ... improper.
or unauthorized " Webster told a
breakfast meeting of reporters yes-
terday. He refused to describe it
further or to say whether it had
been .circulated within the White
House "because I don't want to dis-
cuss the details of an investigation."
Webster also said that he did not
believe that any documents had
been "shredded" that would be per-
tinent to the investigation. FBI
agents have found, he said, that
NSC staff members "routinely de-
stroy or shred records ...for the
interest of security. But we have
riot come across anything at this
point that suggests any out of the
ordinary course [of] destruction of.
records."
The document found Nov. 22,
along with an explanation of it ob-
tained from NSC staff member Lt.
Col. Oliver L. North the same day,
?ed senior attorneys in the Justice
D'epartment's criminal division to
believe that criminal violations
might have taken place, Webster
said.
"I made my usual proffer, 'Is
there anything we can do for you?' "
Webster said yesterday of his Nov.
21 conversation with Meese. "And
he said, 'Well, I don't know of any-
thing that's criminal at this point,
do you?' And I said, 'No, on what I
know, I don't know either.' "
Webster said, "We haven't found
any evidence to date that would
suggest that we were handicapped"
by not getting into the case earlier.
On Nov. 25, the day before the
FBI entered the case, Webster said
he told Meese that "all officials
would be requested to preserve
records intact."
Asked about how details of the
FBI investigation are being handled
now, Webster said he was getting a
daily briefing and that information
is also passed on to Meese's dep-
uties who are supervising the legal
aspects of the probe.
The question of whether that in-
vestigative information is passed on
to the White House is decided by
the attorney general. The past at-
torneys general that Webster
worked under, he said, took "the
position that information about an
investigation involving the White
House ought not to be disseminated
in the White House absent some
overriding reason."
His "understanding," Webster
said, was that 'tive would not be
making further reports [to the pres-
ident] unless there were something
of critical national security interest
...until we have the case finished."
When an independent counsel
takes over, Webster said, he as-
sumed the FBI would continue its
work, but its investigative reports
would go solely to the new counsel
and no longer to the Justice Depart-
ment or its officials. Meese an-
nounced Tuesday that he was seek-
ing appointment of a special counsel
by a three-judge appeals panel here
to handle the investigation.
Webster said that "impatience
and frustration .. ,over longstand-
ing, unsolved problems, 1 think ef-
forts really to get the hostages out,
and so on," led to the NSC staff ac-
tivities now under investigation.
According to knowledgeable of-
ficials, the Iran-contra affair began
coming to light on Nov.LU, when
Meese and a top aide were review-
ing legal issues involved in forth-
coming administration testimony on
the Iranian arms sales. They discov-
ered "noticeable gaps in the infor-
mation" that various officials
planned for the upcoming set of
hearings.
The next morning, beainninA at 9
a.m., CIA Director Wi11ia~L Casev
was questioned shat 1 bb members
o t e ouse Permanent Select
ommrttee on ntelliAence about
t e han lin of funds generated by.
tTie sale of 12 million worth of IJ.S.
arms o ran rs year. asey cou d
not answer many of the questions
and committee members demanded
a comp e e au i o g opera ion.
a morning, accor mg
to a Justice Department official,
Meese met with President Reagan,
White House chief of staff Donald
T. Regan and national security ad-
viser John M. Poindexter and told
them they needed to collect all the
facts for "a complete, comprehen-
sive overview." Meese was given
the assignment with the under-
standing his report would be ready
for an NSC meeting on Nov. 24 at 2
p.m.
Meese returned to the Justice
Department and pulled together a
small team of close aides. Sometime
that afternoon, he also. spoke with
Webster and according` to the FBI
director said that he wanted to get
"a true factual picture because
there seemed to be some blurring
of what people were saying and the
attorney general had gotten the
ticket to find out exactly what had
taken place."
Meese asserted at a news con-
ference Tuesday that he and- Web-
ster "both agreed -there was no le-
gal basis" for the FBI's involvement
on Nov. 21 "because there was no
even [sicj suggesting of anything
criminal which would justify legally
their entrance into the matter "
FBI and Justice Department of-
ficials acknowledged yesterday,
however, that the FBI can conduct
"special investigations" or "admin-
istrative inquiries" for the president
without any evidence of a federal
crime. But Webster said yesterday
any suggestion that it should have
been called in earlier was "hind-
sight."
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605100012-0
~~
On Nov. 22, the Meese team
-came across the key document,
prompting a lengthy interview with
North, the point man in the Iranian
arms sales. and the contra opera-
tion. The Meese team worked into
the night and interviewed North
again the next day. By then,
sources say, it became increasingly
clear that there was a connection
between the funds generated from
the sale to Iran of arms and funds
going to the contras.
In the course of the inquiry,
Meese and his aides interviewed
principal figures including the pres-
ident, Casey, Secretary of State
George P. Shultz, Secretary of De-
fense Caspar W. Weinberger, and
Poindexter.
With more work to be done, the
Nov. 24 deadline for the NSC meet-
ing slipped by.
On Nov. 25; after an early morn-
ing meeting with Meese, the pres-
ident decided publicly to announce
Meese's findings, and did so at --
noon. Reagan also announced that
North had been relieved of his du-
ties and Poindexter had resigned.
The attorney general, at his news
conference immediately afterward,
said that an estimated $10 million
to $30 million in Iranian arms sales
profits had been diverted to aid the
contras.
It took another day to bring the
FBI into the inquiry, according to
the chronology Webster provided
yesterday.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/03 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605100012-0