## Facts

- A federal grand jury indicted Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, an NSC staff member, for conduct arising from the Iran–Contra affair, involving secret arms sales to Iran and diversion of proceeds to aid the Contras despite congressional restrictions.
- Count 1 charged a conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 by obstructing lawful governmental functions through deceit, including concealing profits and withholding information from Congress about assistance to the Contras.
- Counts 2 and 3 charged substantive offenses tied to the same overall course of conduct.
- North filed multiple pretrial motions seeking dismissal of Counts 1–3 and related relief, arguing (among other things) lack of fair notice, misjoinder of multiple conspiracies, failure to state offenses, nonjusticiability under the political question doctrine, improper reliance on the Boland Amendments and executive directives, and reliance on “novel” legal theories beyond the Independent Counsel’s authority.

## Issues

1. Whether Count 1 adequately alleged a conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 based on obstructing lawful governmental functions through deceit.
2. Whether Count 1 failed for lack of constitutionally adequate fair notice, including in light of foreign-affairs and separation-of-powers objections to the Boland Amendments and related directives.
3. Whether Count 1 impermissibly charged multiple conspiracies in a single count.
4. Whether Counts 2 and 3 failed to state federal offenses.
5. Whether the prosecution presented a nonjusticiable political question or exceeded the Independent Counsel’s authority by using impermissibly “novel” theories.

## Decision

- The court denied North’s motions to dismiss Counts 1 and 2.
- The court granted the motion to dismiss Count 3 for failure to state an offense.
- The court rejected political question and separation-of-powers objections as a basis to dismiss the surviving counts.
- The court declined to strike references to the Boland Amendments, Executive Order 12333, and NSDD-159 from Count 1, treating them as contextual to the alleged obstructed governmental functions rather than independent criminal predicates.
- The court rejected the argument that the indictment rested on unauthorized or “novel” theories beyond the Independent Counsel’s authority.

## Legal Principles

- Under 18 U.S.C. § 371, “defraud the United States” includes conspiracies that obstruct or interfere with lawful governmental functions by dishonest means; pecuniary loss to the government is not required.
- An indictment may charge a § 371 defraud conspiracy where concealment and misrepresentation are alleged as the mechanism to impede Congress’s oversight and appropriations-related functions.
- Fair notice is satisfied where the charged conduct centers on deceitful obstruction of lawful governmental action under settled § 371 doctrine, even when the conduct occurs in a foreign-affairs context.
- Allegations of concealment may be treated as part of a single overarching conspiracy when concealment is alleged as an object or method of the conspiracy from the outset, rather than as a separate agreement.
- Criminal prosecution of alleged deceit obstructing governmental functions presents a justiciable application of criminal law and is not barred by the political question doctrine merely because it arises from foreign policy disputes.

## Conclusion

The court sustained a § 371 conspiracy-to-defraud charge based on alleged deceptive obstruction of congressional oversight and allowed a related substantive count to proceed, while dismissing one substantive count for failure to state an offense and rejecting challenges based on fair notice, multiple conspiracies, political question doctrine, and claims of unauthorized “novel” theories.


United States v. North, 708 F. Supp. 375 (D.D.C. 1988)