Editing Iran–Contra affair (section)

==Congressional committees investigating the affair==
{{Main|Congressional committees investigating the Iran–Contra affair}}
In January 1987, Congress announced it was opening an investigation into the Iran–Contra affair. Depending upon one's political perspective, the congressional investigation into the Iran–Contra affair was either an attempt by the legislative arm to gain control over an out-of-control executive arm, a partisan "witch hunt" by the Democrats against a Republican administration or a feeble effort by Congress that did far too little to rein in the "imperial presidency" that had run amok by breaking numerous laws.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Masker |first=John Scott |title=Teaching the Iran-Contra Affair |pages=701–703 |journal=PS: Political Science & Politics |volume=29 |issue=4 |year=1996 |doi=10.2307/420797 |jstor=420797|doi-access=free }}</ref> The Democratic-controlled [[United States Congress]] issued its own report on 18 November 1987, stating that "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have."<ref name="reagan no-bbc"/> The congressional report wrote that the president bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides, and his administration exhibited "secrecy, deception and disdain for the law".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/print/0,3858,5211614-103677,00.html|title=Nixon's Empire Strikes Back|author=Blumenthal, Sidney|work=The Guardian|date=9 June 2005|access-date=6 June 2008 | location=London}}</ref> It also read that "the central remaining question is the role of the President in the Iran–Contra affair. On this critical point, the shredding of documents by Poindexter, North and others, and the death of Casey, leave the record incomplete".