Meese Aide to Testify on Initial Probe
Today’s witness before the congressional Iran- contra committees is scheduled to be Charles J. Cooper, assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel.
Cooper has been questioned privately for 16 hours by committee staff members this week about his role in Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III’s frequently criticized investigation last November of the emerging scandal over the sale of U.S. weapons to Iran in exchange for American hostages in Lebanon.
Cooper, a former law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, is also expected to be asked by committee members about a memo he wrote supporting the legality of the arms shipment to Iran in November, 1985, two months before a presidential “finding” sought retroactively to endorse the sale.
Cooper is the last scheduled witness before former White House aide Oliver L. North on July 7.
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