Oliver North, the man who nearly 30 years ago was convicted of several crimes related to the Iran-Contra scandal, is going to be the new leader of the right-wing pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA).
"Oliver North is, hands down, the absolute best choice to lead our NRA Board, to fully engage with our members, and to unflinchingly stand and fight for the great freedoms he has defended his entire life," NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre explained in a statement, according to CNN. LaPierre has emerged as one of the NRA's most prominent figures over the last few years, a role that he is likely to at least partially cede to North now that the former national security aide has been tapped to head the organization.
North is likely to fit in well with the group, given that he has spent more than 20 years as a right-wing media figure. Most recently North has appeared regularly as a commentator on Fox News, where he has continued his reputation for offering consistently conservative interpretations of major news events. North is now retiring from FOX News, effective immediately, to take over the NRA.
Up until the 1970s, the NRA was viewed as more of a sportsmen's club than a political organization, at least according to its leaders. In 1977, however, an internal coup replaced the organization's traditional leadership with staunch right-wingers who were convinced that federal efforts at gun control were an attempt by the state to infringe upon their civil liberties. This was in staunch contrast to the right-wing position on gun control less than a decade earlier when an armed Black Panther Party march in California prompted Governor Ronald Reagan and other prominent conservatives to call for stricter gun control measures.
North himself became a right-wing hero in the 1980s when he admitted to partial responsibility for selling weapons to Iran through an intermediary in order to arm right-wing militants in Nicaragua called the Contras. The so-called Iran-Contra scandal would shake Reagan's presidency during its second term as well as that of his successor, George H. W. Bush. North was ultimately convicted of three crimes, according to The Guardian.
The former National Security aide, Oliver North, the man at the heart of the 1986 Iran-contra affair, was yesterday found guilty on three counts - including deceiving Congress and receiving an illegal gratuity - in a verdict which seems certain to rebound with a vengeance on President Bush and his predecessor, Mr Reagan.
The three counts were: shredding government documents; accepting a bribe in the shape of a security fence; and seeking to keep the truth from Congress.
North's convictions were later vacated and the charges against him dismissed due to the possibility that witnesses may have been influenced by his congressional testimony, for which he had been granted immunity. As a result, North's public image was sufficiently clean enough to enable him to run for the United States Senate in Virginia in 1994. Although the 1994 midterm elections were a sweeping triumph for Republican candidates throughout the country, North was one of the few GOPers to go down in defeat, losing to the Democratic incumbent Chuck Robb in a campaign later chronicled in the 1996 documentary "A Perfect Candidate."
This hilarious "American Dad!" clip offers a pithy summary of North's involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.
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