Political Quotes

“the fact that President Reagan's Attorney General and Director of Central Intelligence thought that drug trafficking by their assets agents and contractors needed to be protected has been long known. These damning memorandums and the resulting memorandum of understanding are further evidence of a shocking official policy that allowed the drug cartels to operate through the CIA-led Contra covert operations in Central America. This 1982 agreement clearly violated the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. It also raises the possibility that certain individuals who testified in front of congressional investigating committees perjured themselves. Mr. Chairman, every American should be shocked by these revelations. Given the shameful history of turning a blind eye to CIA involvement with drug traffickers, this amendment seeks to determine whether the current memorandum of understanding closes all of these loopholes to the drug cartels and narcotics trade. At this time I know that there is a point of order against my amendment. The chairman of the committee is going to oppose this amendment, and so I am going to withdraw the amendment. But I wanted the opportunity to put it before this body so that they could understand that we had an official policy and a memorandum of understanding that people could fall back on and say I did not have to report it. Yes, I knew about it. We have a subsequent memorandum of understanding of 1995 that is supposed to take care of it.”