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Chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who in 1992 sought leniency for the arms dealer Dirk Stoffberg, and whom Ari Ben-Menashe described as calling the Iran-Contra hearings a cover-up. |
Spencer Oliver was the chief counsel for the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was involved in the Iran-Contra Affair hearings. In 1991, he discussed the events of 1987 with Ari Ben-Menashe, admitting that the Democrats knew the witnesses were lying and that the hearings were a cover-up to avoid impeaching the president.1
Stoffberg letter (1992)
On January 10, 1992, Oliver, chief counsel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York requesting leniency for Dirk Stoffberg, a convicted arms dealer, on the ground that Stoffberg had provided the committee with information about the 1980 hostage events. Judge Jack Weinstein cited the request in an amended sentencing memorandum and reduced the sentence.2 On February 4, 1992, Representative McEwen of Ohio announced that he would offer a privileged resolution on the letter before the House debated House Resolution 258, which created the October Surprise task force.2 A reprinted newspaper account quotes Representative Henry Hyde: "By what authority did Spencer Oliver intervene in this case, and why wasn't the minority notified?"3
Footnotes
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Ben-Menashe, Ari. Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015). ↩︎
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U.S. House of Representatives, Congressional Record, February 4, 1992, pp. H253 and following (announcement by Representative McEwen; reprinted letter of January 10, 1992; amended memorandum and order of the Eastern District of New York). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_cr/h920204-october.htm ↩︎
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Reprinted article quoted in the same Congressional Record volume (Stoffberg defense account), above. ↩︎