is no doubt that he and the the guidance atmosphere in which people like robert mcfarlane and john poindexter, and all the others took inspiration and instructions. you remember the famous phrase back in the congressional hearings, mcfarlane said in 1984 president reagan took him aside and said it is up to you to keep the contras together body and soul in anticipation of stringent restrictions on government aid to the contras that were about to take place. the boland amendment. as you look at the record as i saw it, it was clear to everybody including reagan what was about to happen. this was virtually a complete shutdown of official u.s. assistance to the contras. reagan was not about to let them go. he was as emotional about the freedom fighters as he was the hostages. he was intent on finding ways to get around congressional prohibitions. whether he understood everything that was to happen was legal or illegal, we can get into those details. the basic point is that he was at the top of the pyramid and without him i don't think any of this would have happened. bruce: the heart of the iran a

john poindexter says, we have just gotten an organ -- an urgent request from king fahd to help us in these various ways in the persian gulf because shipping is being attacked. it is time for us to step up and do something. this was the subject of the meeting. it doesn't take a math genius to add two and two together and see that there is an expectation there. that was the case, even more explicitly, and all these instances, including one case where bush admitted going to honduras to try to cut the same deal. bruce: if my memory is right, you also described in the book a meeting at the king david hotel in jerusalem between the vice president and the israelis. you alluded to this before. 020 in on it a little more. -- zero on it a little more. the idea of arms to hostages, arms to iran, arms in general for whatever, would never have stood in washington without the israelis saying, this is the right thing to do. this book is not about israeli foreign policy, but how would you characterize the weight which israel had in moving the united states in this direction, and particularly the way

several members of reagan's administration, including reagan's national security adviser admiral john poindexternd his deputy, lieutenant colonel oliver north. north was the pivotal figure in all of this. he lied under oath and destroyed evidence related to the illegal sale of arms to iran. these were and still are crimes, but north didn't go to prison. as vox points out, in all likelihood that's because a joint senate committee, deeming north's information vital to the public interest granted him immunity before the fbi could fully build its case. it appears that michael flynn may be looking to accomplish something similar. as we said earlier, the senate intelligence committee has turned down that request for immunity in exchange for testimony. political observers have been quick to equate the trump campaign's potential ties to rush with watergate, but it seems possible the more comparable -- we'll talk about that next. >>> i sincerely believe that i did everything within the law. i made serious judgment errors, and i have admitted those, but i tried, and i don't regret having done it. >> that

several members of reagan's administration, including reagan's national security adviser admiral john poindexter and his deputy, lieutenant colonel oliver north. north was the pivotal figure in all of this. he lied under oath and destroyed evidence related to the illegal sale of arms to iran. these were and still are crimes, but north didn't go to prison. as vox points out, in all likelihood that's because a joint senate committee, deeming north's information vital to the public interest granted him immunity before the fbi could fully build its case. it appears that michael flynn may be looking to accomplish something similar. as we said earlier, the senate intelligence committee has turned down that request for immunity in exchange for testimony. political observers have been quick to equate the trump campaign's potential ties to rush with watergate, but it seems possible the more comparable -- we'll talk about that next. woman: on the gulf coast, new exxonmobil projects are expected to create over 45,000 jobs. and each job created by the energy industry supports two others in the community. al

several members of reagan's administration, including reagan's national security adviser admiral john poindexter and his deputy, lieutenant colonel oliver north. north was the pivotal figure in all of this. he lied under oath and destroyed evidence related to the illegal sale of arms to iran. these were and still are crimes, but north didn't go to prison. as vox points out, in all likelihood that's because a joint senate committee, deeming north's information vital to the public interest granted him immunity before the fbi could fully build its case. it appears that michael flynn may be looking to accomplish something similar. as we said earlier, the senate intelligence committee has turned down that request for immunity in exchange for testimony. political observers have been quick to equate the trump campaign's potential ties to russia with watergate, but it seems possible the more comparable scandal just might be iran-contra. we'll talk about that next. nosy neighbor with a keen sense of smell... glad bag, full of trash. what happens next? nothing. only glad has febreze to neutralize odors fo