IT’S NO LIE – NORTH TO LEAD NRA:
Iran-amok Ollie biggest coup since Heston
OLIVER NORTH, the hawkish ex-Marine who was enmeshed in the Iran-Contra weapons-selling scandal, will become the next president of the National Rifle Association, the gun lobby’s top executive announced Monday.
The retired lieutenant colonel becomes the most high-profile person to head the powerful gun group since late actor Charlton Heston, who infamously proclaimed at the 2000 NRA convention that his weapons would only be taken from his “cold, dead hands.”
“This is the most exciting news for our members since Charlton Heston became president of our association,” NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre said in a statement. “Oliver North is a legendary warrior for American freedom, a gifted communicator and skilled leader. In these times, I can think of no one better suited to serve as our president.”
North, 74, will immediately stop appearing as a commentator on Fox News, LaPierre said. He’s expected to officially come on board as chief of the country’s largest gun lobby in “a few weeks.” He succeeds Pete Brownell, who did not seek a second twoyear term.
NRA presidents typically act as the public face of the gun group, while LaPierre and his deputies oversee most day-to-day operations and political lobbying efforts.
In a statement, North said he was honored to be selected and “eager to hit the ground running.”
The North news drew an instant rebuke from critics outraged with his involvement in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, in which senior Reagan administration officials covertly sold weapons to the arms-embargoed Iranian regime, and then used proceeds to fund the right-wing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua.
North, who served as an aide on President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council, was at the center of the scandal, and ended up getting convicted for facilitating the shadowy deals and lying about them to congressional investigators.
“For an organization so concerned with law and order, picking a new leader who admitted that he lied to Congress is a truly remarkable decision,” said Avery Gardiner, president of the pro-gun control Brady Campaign.
Gardiner’s co-president, Kris Brown, noted the NRA “will be led by a man whose own concealed carry permit was revoked because he was ‘not of good character.’ ”
The Iran-Contra scandal left a dark stain on Reagan’s administration, although congressional committees found no evidence to suggest that the President himself was aware of the shadowy deals.
North, on the other hand, was convicted on three felony counts in 1989. He was sentenced to a three-year suspended prison term.
But a federal judge threw out North’s conviction after his attorneys successfully argued that witnesses at his trial might have been affected by his confidential congressional testimony.
North maintained throughout his case that
the Iran-Contra deal was a “neat idea,” even though it violated laws set forth by Congress.
He characterized the Contras as freedom fighters, although the right-wing militias committed numerous human rights violations and carried out atrocities while waging war on the Socialist Nicaraguan government.
A highly decorated Vietnam War vet, North rose through the ranks of the military, planning and helping to execute several international missions. He orchestrated the U.S. military response to the 1983 bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service members.
After leaving the service during the scandal, he made a failed run for the U.S. Senate and penned several best-selling military thrillers. In addition to frequent appearances as a security expert on Fox, he reportedly pitched a plan with Blackwater founder Erik Prince to the White House last year for a private spy network that would report directly to President Trump and then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo. North’s appointment comes at a tumultuous time for the NRA. The gun lobby has drawn the attention of special counsel Robert Mueller, who’s investigating possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. The NRA, which spent millions of dollars on ads intended to boost Trump’s presidential campaign, has ties to Russian individuals facing scrutiny from Mueller, including Alexander Torshin, an ally of strongman Vladimir Putin and the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank.
The NRA has also come under intense scrutiny over its vehement opposition to gun control in the wake of a string of horrific mass shootings. On Feb. 14, 17 people were killed when a teen gunman stormed into a high school in Parkland, Fla., and opened fire with an AR-15 assault rifle.
Democrats and even some Republicans called for beefed-up gun control laws after the senseless shooting. NRA leaders, meanwhile, proposed putting guns in the hands of teachers.
North is the biggest name to head the NRA since “Planet of the Apes” star Heston.
Heston served from 1998 to 2003. He died in 2008.
In 2000, he sought to rally NRA supporters against Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, warning that Gore was going to “slander you as gun-toting, knuckle-dragging, bloodthirsty maniacs,” and said his own guns would have to be pried from his “cold, dead hands.”