North Resumes Legal Battle Over Walsh

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, returning to the public eye, went to court today to press his attack on independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh’s authority to investigate the Iran- contra affair.

North, who testified at length last month at the nationally televised congressional Iran-contra hearings, is a target of Walsh’s investigation into the possibility of criminal wrongdoing in the sale of U.S.-made weapons to Iran and the diversion of some of the proceeds to Nicaraguan rebels.

Defense attorney Barry Simon told a three-judge federal appellate panel that Walsh was operating under an unconstitutional law and an improperly conferred parallel appointment by the Justice Department.

He argued that Walsh’s assistants lack legal authority as federal prosecutors and therefore the independent counsel’s grand jury investigation is “tainted.”

North, who appeared for today’s two-hour hearing in his Marine uniform, is appealing U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr.’s ruling last month that upheld the Justice Department appointment.

“Now I know I have brilliant lawyers,” he said after today’s hearing. He refused to make further comment.

The March 5 Justice Department appointment of Walsh was conferred to counter an earlier North challenge to the independent counsel law.

Simon argued that since most of Walsh’s assistants were appointed before March 5, they did not take a Justice Department oath of office and lack authority to go before the federal grand jury investigating North and other principals in the arms deals.

“There are 26 staff members running around purporting to be representatives of the United States” who have not taken the proper oath, Simon said.

Though the judicial panel made no ruling today, Circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams suggested that Walsh merely ignored some technicalities “by not filling out a lot of silly new paper.”