Walsh Says North Flouts Secrets Law
The prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case asked the judge Wednesday to order Oliver L. North to be more specific about what government secrets he wants to disclose at his trial or bar the ex-White House aide from revealing any classified information.
Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh said the 265-page notice that North had filed Monday under the Classified Information Procedures Act flouted both the law and an order issued earlier by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell.
“This telephone book-size submission is merely the latest move in the defendants’ struggle to have this trial postponed and to subvert the procedures of this court,” Walsh said in a brief filed in U.S. District Court.
Walsh said the notice “merely recites an inventory . . . of virtually all of the hundreds of thousands of classified documents the defendant has received in discovery.”
Walsh contended that the classified information statute requires a specific notice of the exact nature of top secret information the defendant intends to introduce at trial. The law was enacted by Congress to prevent defendants from scuttling the prosecution by threatening to disclose unspecified government secrets at trial.
North, a former National Security Council aide, is charged with conspiring with former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter, arms dealer Albert A. Hakim and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord to illegally divert U.S.-Iran arms sales profits to the Contras.
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