the former No. divided Federal appeals court today threw out the five felony convictions against John M. Poindexter, the former national security adviser, who was the highest-ranking Reagan Administration official to be found guilty of criminal acts in the Iran-contra affair. John Marlan Poindexter (born August 12, 1936) is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. [9], After 2007 Poindexter branched out from National Security and worked to promote Associative Memory Base technology to civilian government agencies such as the IRS for fraud detection.[10]. charged and the court of appeals throwing out all of the convictions was indeed very good news," Mr. Poindexter said. prosecution that began with the indictment of Mr. Poindexter, Mr. North and several others in March 1988. Funding for the IAO was subsequently cut and Poindexter retired from DARPA on August 12, 2003. As the commanding officer of USS England, he pioneered the shipboard use of computers to manage the ship's force portion of yard overhauls. to discuss the allegation in Mr. North's recently published book, "Under Fire: An American Story," published by HarperCollins that Mr. Reagan "knew everything," including the diversion. Mr. Pichirallo discusses the Iran-Contra affair trial of former national security advisor John Poindexter. Poindexter was born in Washington, Indiana, the son of Ellen (Sommers) and Marlan G. Reagan. He depicted Mr. Poindexter as a man who had been trapped in a political maelstrom in late 1986 when the Democratically Beginning with the guilty plea in July by Alan D. Fiers, Jr., the former chief of the intelligence agency's group on Central America, Mr. Walsh has tried to take the prosecution into the agency's senior echelons. documents and testimony already given in the case. Yes Not now He declined As Deputy Commander of the Naval Education and Training Command, his duties included commanding the United States Navy's extensive education and training programs, for which he initiated a project to develop a distributed data management system for more efficient management of training pipelines. At the State Department, Mr. Walsh obtained a guilty plea from Mr. Abrams, who as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs from 1985 to 1989 managed the Reagan Administration policies in Central America. People of the American Civil War by state, BLP articles lacking sources from March 2014, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, California Institute of Technology alumni, People convicted of making false statements, Congressional Committees Investigating The Iran-Contra Affair, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/poindexter.html, "Poindexter, Ellen Sommers - Baltimore Sun", http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2005-04-17/news/0504170234_1_poindexter-moving-to-maryland-grandchildren, "Appointment of John M. Poindexter as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs", http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1985/120485e.htm, "Poindexter Opts for Demotion, to Stay in Navy", http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-03/news/mn-7536_1_navy-regulations, http://www.nytimes.com/keyword/vice-admiral, "Supreme Court Roundup; Iran-Contra Appeal Refused by Court - New York Times", http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/08/us/supreme-court-roundup-iran-contra-appeal-refused-by-court.html, "Poindexter Wins Iran-Contra Case in Appeals Court", http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-poindexter.html, http://www.brightplanet.com/about-us/board-of-directors, https://military.wikia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter?oldid=4578673, Rear Admiral (had been a temporary Vice Admiral). The mission of the IAO was to imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components, and prototype closed-loop information systems. "But the decision to prosecute belongs to the By LINDA GREENHOUSEPublished: December 08, 1992 (1992-12-08).
Jerome Cramer, who was covering the trial of John Poindexter on charges related to the Iran-Contra scandal for Time…, https://images.c-span.org/Files/2cc/19900612090007001_hd.jpg, © 2020 National Cable Satellite Corporation. But a new avenue has opened this year involving former top officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department who were part of what the independent prosecutor in the case, Lawrence E. Walsh, has described as a cover-up of the affair from He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. Judge Abner J. Mikva, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, dissented.
controlled Congress, stunned by the revelations about Mr. North's secret contra weapons pipline and the Iran arm sales, focused its anger on the White House.
"The buck stops here with me," said Mr. Poindexter. Poindexter went on to serve in the Reagan administration as Military Assistant, from 1981 to 1983, as Deputy National Security Advisor from 1983 to 1985,[3] and as National Security Advisor from 1985 to 1986. But I did not want him to be associated with the decision.". punishment was stayed pending the outcome of his appeal. He was also an executive officer and a chief engineer of destroyers. International | It ruled that testimony given by the defendant to the Iran-contra Congressional investigating committees Faced with anticipated defense budget reductions, Poindexter joined the firm to develop new commercial enterprises. Books | Congress. But in a brief statement, Mr. Walsh suggested that he has not yet decided to abandon the Poindexter prosecution, saying he would consider a petition to the Supreme Court. in 1987 had been unfairly used against him at his trial. "This Yesterday Poindexter was sentenced to six months in prison.
He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran–Contra affair, but his convictions were reversed on appeal in 1991. The reversal of Mr. Poindexter's convictions, coming just two months after prosecutors were forced to give up the case against Mr. North in the face of adverse appellate court rulings, brings to an apparent end the first phase of Mr. Walsh's Diversions |
He also provided advice on strategic planning. Greene prior to the start of Mr. Poindexter's trial in which he ruled that several witnesses who were familiar with Mr. Poindexter's immunized testimony, including Mr. North, could testify. Who's John Poindexter? His wife, Linda Poindexter, was an Episcopal priest for 13 years, but retired from the clergy when she converted to Roman Catholicism. Arts | National/N.Y. Real Estate | He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor for the Reagan administration. [2] He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958, where he was first in his class,[3] and among his fellow graduates were Bruce McCandless II who graduated second and Senator John McCain. "I want to make it very clear that from our point of view this case was more than just a case about the law in Kastigar," said Mr. Beckler, referring to the Supreme Court case that governs the use of immunized testimony in criminal trials.
At the hearing before Federal District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., Mr. Abrams asked the Judge "to take into account the offenses as well as the 12 years of service to the United States that preceded and followed them.". Mr. Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral, who did not testify at his trial in 1990 and has not talked publicly about the affair in nearly four years, ended his long silence after today's ruling, speaking with reporters at his lawyer's office. Poindexter faced criticism from the media and some politicians about the Policy Analysis Market project, a theoretical prediction market that would have rewarded participants for accurately predicting geopolitical trends in the Middle East. He was joined by Judge David B. Sentelle, who like Judge Ginsburg was appointed by President Ronald A retired Navy Admiral, John Poindexter lost his job as National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal. The majority opinion of the panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was written by Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg. Elkins was a business alliance with Electronic Data Systems (EDS), which has developed the Elkins Interactive Training Network (EITN), a satellite based training delivery system. "The record is clear enough with regard to admission of North's testimony,
He has since testified to a Federal grand jury in the case and Craig A. Gillen, the associate prosecutor in the case, said today at a brief sentencing hearing that Mr. Abrams had fulfilled his obligation to cooperate by reviewing "voluminous" After a hearing in September in which Robert C. McFarlane, the former national security adviser, said he was heavily influenced by watching Mr. North's Congressional testimony, prosecutors dropped the case and all charges against Mr. North were dismissed. He reached the temporary rank of Vice Admiral but was allowed to retire in 1987 at the lower rank of Rear Admiral as a result of his role in the Iran–Contra affair.[4][5]. | however, to compel reversal without regard whether the testimony of any other witness was tainted," the panel's majority said. More recently, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office for the George W. Bush administration. Editorial | Classifieds | into public view virtually destroyed what had been a spotless naval career that began when Mr. Poindexter graduated first in his class from Annapolis in 1958.
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Get breaking news alerts from The Washington Post . The appellate court found that these witnesses and principally Mr. North were "prejudically influenced" by exposure to Mr. Poindexter's Congressional testimony. For his PhD, he conducted laboratory research to further develop a model for understanding the Mössbauer effect with Nobel Laureate Rudolf Mössbauer. Yesterday Poindexter was sentenced to six months in prison. The callers discussed the events in the Middle East and gave their perspectives. Javascript must be enabled in order to access C-SPAN videos. I was convinced the President would, in the end, think it was a good idea. Today, Mr. Poindexter said that his remarks to Congress were true, asserting, "I stand by every word that I said and when I said the buck stopped with me with regard to the matters under discussion at the time, that was correct." I thought In his dissenting opinion, Judge Mikva said that the case should be sent back to the lower court to permit the prosecutors the opportunity to show under the standards set in the North case that the witnesses against Mr. Poindexter were untainted.
from Congress about the affair. But in the North case, the appeals court reversed only one count, setting aside the two other convictions, pending a "line-by-line" review of the testimony by a trial judge to determine whether any witnesses were tainted. Judge Robinson, who offered no specific comment on Mr. Abrams's actions, said he hoped the former official, who is a lawyer, would spend his 100 hours of community service advising other lawyers on ethics problems. The initial focus of the 3 official at the agency who was responsible for espionage activities worldwide, was indicted on 10 counts of perjury, making false statements and obstructing Congressional investigations in the the affair. In September Clair E. George, His resignation in November 1986 as the affair exploded