November 18, 1987: Iran-Contra Committee Issues Final Majority Report

Congress’s joint Iran-Contra investigative committee issues its final majority report. [New York Times, 11/19/1987] The Republican minority has largely refused to join the majority report, which was watered down time and again to entice the Republicans to join in the issuance of a unanimous report (see November 16-17, 1987). Still, the watered-down report finds that the “clandestine financing operation undermined the powers of Congress as a coequal branch and subverted the Constitution.” The Reagan administration had violated a key belief of the Constitution’s framers: “the purse and the sword should never be in the same hands.” Regardless of the majority report’s findings, no significant reforms will come from the Iran-Contra investigation. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 81-82]