ABSTRACT
The text of the United States Constitution says nothing directly about rescuing hostages, selling arms, supporting foreign guerrillas, shredding documents or reimbursing White House aides for business expenses with money laundered through Swiss bank accounts. Suggesting that the Fifth Amendment is an impediment to justice or that the Electoral College is undemocratic brings down the wrath of the minions of the constitutional religion. Oliver North’s 1985 effort to wrap the Contras in the Constitution stalled, but by December of 1986 he discovered that the charter made an even more suitable cover for his own suddenly vulnerable legal position. The Constitution has played a role — and a big one — in allowing the facts of Contragate to come out. The congressional committee is part of the system. Constitutional crises such as Contragate can be interpreted just the opposite way. They show how far wrong things can go despite the Constitution.
