title: Iran–Contra affair

text: In 1985, President Reagan entered Bethesda Naval Hospital for colon cancer surgery. Reagan's recovery was nothing short of miserable, as the 74-year-old President admitted having little sleep for days in addition to his immense physical discomfort. While doctors seemed to be confident that the surgery was successful, the discovery of his localized cancer was a daunting realization for Reagan. From seeing the recovery process of other patients, as well as medical “experts” on television predicting his death to be soon, Reagan's typical optimistic outlook was dampened. These factors were bound to contribute to psychological distress in the midst of an already distressing situation. Additionally, Reagan's invocation of the 25th Amendment prior to the surgery was a risky and unprecedented decision that smoothly flew under the radar for the duration of the complex situation. While it only lasted slightly longer than the length of the procedure (approximately seven hours and 54 minutes), this temporary transfer of power was never formally recognized by the White House. It was later revealed that this decision was made on the grounds that "Mr. Reagan and his advisors did not want his actions to establish a definition of incapacitation that would bind future presidents." Reagan expressed this transfer of power in two identical letters that were sent to the speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, and the president pro tempore of the senate, Sen. Strom Thurmond.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: While the President was recovering in the hospital, McFarlane met with him and told him that representatives from Israel had contacted the National Security Agency to pass on confidential information from what Reagan later described as the "moderate" Iranian faction headed by Rafsanjani opposed to the Ayatollah's hardline anti-American policies. The visit from McFarlane in Reagan’s hospital room was the first visit from an administration official outside of Donald Regan since the surgery. The meeting took place five days after the surgery and only three days after doctors gave the news that his polyp had been malignant. The three participants of this meeting had very different recollections of what was discussed during its 23-minute duration. Months later, Reagan even stated that he "had no recollection of a meeting in the hospital in July with McFarlane and that he had no notes which would show such a meeting." This does not come as a surprise considering the possible short and long-term effects of anesthesia on patients above the age of 60, in addition to his already weakened physical and mental state.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: According to Reagan, these Iranians sought to establish a quiet relationship with the United States, before establishing formal relationships upon the death of the aging Ayatollah. In Reagan's account, McFarlane told Reagan that the Iranians, to demonstrate their seriousness, offered to persuade the Hezbollah militants to release the seven U.S. hostages. McFarlane met with the Israeli intermediaries; Reagan claimed that he allowed this because he believed that establishing relations with a strategically located country, and preventing the Soviet Union from doing the same, was a beneficial move. Although Reagan claims that the arms sales were to a "moderate" faction of Iranians, the Walsh Iran/Contra Report states that the arms sales were "to Iran" itself, which was under the control of the Ayatollah.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Following the Israeli–U.S. meeting, Israel requested permission from the United States to sell a small number of BGM-71 TOW antitank missiles to Iran, claiming that this would aid the "moderate" Iranian faction, by demonstrating that the group actually had high-level connections to the U.S. government. Reagan initially rejected the plan, until Israel sent information to the United States showing that the "moderate" Iranians were opposed to terrorism and had fought against it. Now having a reason to trust the "moderates", Reagan approved the transaction, which was meant to be between Israel and the "moderates" in Iran, with the United States reimbursing Israel. In his 1990 autobiography "An American Life", Reagan claimed that he was deeply committed to securing the release of the hostages; it was this compassion that supposedly motivated his support for the arms initiatives. The president requested that the "moderate" Iranians do everything in their capability to free the hostages held by Hezbollah. Reagan always publicly insisted after the scandal broke in late 1986 that the purpose behind the arms-for-hostages trade was to establish a working relationship with the "moderate" faction associated with Rafsanjani to facilitate the reestablishment of the American–Iranian alliance after the soon to be expected death of Khomeini, to end the Iran–Iraq War and end Iranian support for Islamic terrorism while downplaying the importance of freeing the hostages in Lebanon as a secondary issue. By contrast, when testifying before the Tower Commission, Reagan declared that hostage issue was the main reason for selling arms to Iran.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The first arms sales to Iran began in 1981, though the official paper trail has them beginning in 1985 (see above). On 20 August 1985, Israel sent 96 American-made TOW missiles to Iran through an arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Subsequently, on 14 September 1985, 408 more TOW missiles were delivered. On 15 September 1985, following the second delivery, Reverend Benjamin Weir was released by his captors, the Islamic Jihad Organization. On 24 November 1985, 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles were delivered.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Robert McFarlane resigned on 4 December 1985, stating that he wanted to spend more time with his family, and was replaced by Admiral John Poindexter. Two days later, Reagan met with his advisors at the White House, where a new plan was introduced. This called for a slight change in the arms transactions: instead of the weapons going to the "moderate" Iranian group, they would go to "moderate" Iranian army leaders. As each weapons delivery was made from Israel by air, hostages held by Hezbollah would be released. Israel would continue to be reimbursed by the United States for the weapons. Though staunchly opposed by Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, the plan was authorized by Reagan, who stated that, "We were trading arms for hostages, nor were we negotiating with terrorists". In his notes of a meeting held in the White House on 7 December 1985, Weinberger wrote he told Reagan that this plan was illegal, writing: I argued strongly that we have an embargo that makes arms sales to Iran illegal and President couldn't violate it and that 'washing' transactions through Israel wouldn't make it legal. Shultz, Don Regan agreed. Weinberger's notes have Reagan saying he "could of illegality but he couldn't that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to '." Now retired National Security Advisor McFarlane flew to London to meet with Israelis and Ghorbanifar in an attempt to persuade the Iranian to use his influence to release the hostages before any arms transactions occurred; this plan was rejected by Ghorbanifar.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: On the day of McFarlane's resignation, Oliver North, a military aide to the United States National Security Council (NSC), proposed a new plan for selling arms to Iran, which included two major adjustments: instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct at a markup; and a portion of the proceeds would go to Contras, or Nicaraguan paramilitary fighters waging guerrilla warfare against the Sandinista government, claiming power after an election full of irregularities. The dealings with the Iranians were conducted via the NSC with Admiral Poindexter and his deputy Colonel North, with the American historians Malcolm Byrne and Peter Kornbluh writing that Poindexter granted much power to North "...who made the most of the situation, often deciding important matters on his own, striking outlandish deals with the Iranians, and acting in the name of the president on issues that were far beyond his competence. All of these activities continued to take place within the framework of the president's broad authorization. Until the press reported on the existence of the operation, nobody in the administration questioned the authority of Poindexter's and North's team to implement the president's decisions". North proposed a $15 million markup, while contracted arms broker Ghorbanifar added a 41% markup of his own. Other members of the NSC were in favor of North's plan; with large support, Poindexter authorized it without notifying President Reagan, and it went into effect. At first, the Iranians refused to buy the arms at the inflated price because of the excessive markup imposed by North and Ghorbanifar. They eventually relented, and in February 1986, 1,000 TOW missiles were shipped to the country. From May to November 1986, there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and parts.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Both the sale of weapons to Iran and the funding of the Contras attempted to circumvent not only stated administration policy, but also the Boland Amendment. Administration officials argued that regardless of Congress restricting funds for the Contras, or any affair, the President (or in this case the administration) could carry on by seeking alternative means of funding such as private entities and foreign governments. Funding from one foreign country, Brunei, was botched when North's secretary, Fawn Hall, transposed the numbers of North's Swiss bank account number. A Swiss businessman, suddenly $10 million richer, alerted the authorities of the mistake. The money was eventually returned to the Sultan of Brunei, with interest.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: On 7 January 1986, John Poindexter proposed to Reagan a modification of the approved plan: instead of negotiating with the "moderate" Iranian political group, the United States would negotiate with "moderate" members of the Iranian government. Poindexter told Reagan that Ghorbanifar had important connections within the Iranian government, so with the hope of the release of the hostages, Reagan approved this plan as well. Throughout February 1986, weapons were shipped directly to Iran by the United States (as part of Oliver North's plan), but none of the hostages were released. Retired National Security Advisor McFarlane conducted another international voyage, this one to Tehran – bringing with him a gift of a Bible with a handwritten inscription by Ronald Reagan and, according to George Cave, a cake baked in the shape of a key. Howard Teicher described the cake as a joke between North and Ghorbanifar. McFarlane met directly with Iranian officials associated with Rafsanjani, who sought to establish U.S.–Iranian relations in an attempt to free the four remaining hostages.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The American delegation comprised McFarlane, North, Cave (a retired CIA officer who worked in Iran in the 1960s–70s), Teicher, Israeli diplomat Amiram Nir and a CIA translator. They arrived in Tehran in an Israeli plane carrying forged Irish passports on 25 May 1986. This meeting also failed. Much to McFarlane's disgust, he did not meet ministers, and instead met in his words "third and fourth level officials". At one point, an angry McFarlane shouted: "As I am a Minister, I expect to meet with decision-makers. Otherwise, you can work with my staff." The Iranians requested concessions such as Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which the United States rejected. More importantly, McFarlane refused to ship spare parts for the Hawk missiles until the Iranians had Hezbollah release the American hostages, whereas the Iranians wanted to reverse that sequence with the spare parts being shipped first before the hostages were freed. The differing negotiating positions led to McFarlane's mission going home after four days. After the failure of the secret visit to Tehran, McFarlane advised Reagan not to talk to the Iranians anymore, advice that was disregarded.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: On 26 July 1986, Hezbollah freed the American hostage Father Lawrence Jenco, former head of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon. Following this, William Casey, head of the CIA, requested that the United States authorize sending a shipment of small missile parts to Iranian military forces as a way of expressing gratitude. Casey also justified this request by stating that the contact in the Iranian government might otherwise lose face or be executed, and hostages might be killed. Reagan authorized the shipment to ensure that those potential events would not occur. North used this release to persuade Reagan to switch over to a "sequential" policy of freeing the hostages one by one, instead of the "all or nothing" policy that the Americans had pursued until then. By this point, the Americans had grown tired of Ghobanifar who had proven himself a dishonest intermediary who played off both sides to his own commercial advantage. In August 1986, the Americans had established a new contact in the Iranian government, Ali Hashemi Bahramani, the nephew of Rafsanjani and an officer in the Revolutionary Guard. The fact that the Revolutionary Guard was deeply involved in international terrorism seemed only to attract the Americans more to Bahramani, who was seen as someone with the influence to change Iran's policies. Richard Secord, an American arms dealer, who was being used as a contact with Iran, wrote to North: "My judgment is that we have opened up a new and probably better channel into Iran". North was so impressed with Bahramani that he arranged for him to secretly visit Washington D.C. and gave him a guided tour at midnight of the White House.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: North frequently met with Bahramani in the summer and fall of 1986 in West Germany, discussing arms sales to Iran, the freeing of hostages held by Hezbollah and how best to overthrow President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the establishment of "a non-hostile regime in Baghdad". In September and October 1986 three more Americans – Frank Reed, Joseph Cicippio, and Edward Tracy – were abducted in Lebanon by a separate terrorist group, who referred to them simply as "G.I. Joe," after the popular American toy. The reasons for their abduction are unknown, although it is speculated that they were kidnapped to replace the freed Americans. One more original hostage, David Jacobsen, was later released. The captors promised to release the remaining two, but the release never happened.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: During a secret meeting in Frankfurt in October 1986, North told Bahramani that: "Saddam Hussein must go". North also claimed that Reagan had told him to tell Bahramani that: "Saddam Hussein is an asshole." Behramani during a secret meeting in Mainz informed North that Rafsanjani "for his own politics ... decided to get all the groups involved and give them a role to play." Thus, all the factions in the Iranian government would be jointly responsible for the talks with the Americans and "there would not be an internal war". This demand of Behramani caused much dismay on the American side as it made clear to them that they would not be dealing solely with a "moderate" faction in the Islamic Republic, as the Americans liked to pretend to themselves, but rather with all the factions in the Iranian government – including those who were very much involved in terrorism. Despite this the talks were not broken off.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: After a leak by Mehdi Hashemi, a senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Lebanese magazine "Ash-Shiraa" exposed the arrangement on 3 November 1986. The leak may have been orchestrated by a covert team led by Arthur S. Moreau Jr., assistant to the chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to fears the scheme had grown out of control.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: This was the first public report of the weapons-for-hostages deal. The operation was discovered only after an airlift of guns (Corporate Air Services HPF821) was downed over Nicaragua. Eugene Hasenfus, who was captured by Nicaraguan authorities after surviving the plane crash, initially alleged in a press conference on Nicaraguan soil that two of his coworkers, Max Gomez and Ramon Medina, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. He later said he did not know whether they did or not. The Iranian government confirmed the "Ash-Shiraa" story, and ten days after the story was first published, President Reagan appeared on national television from the Oval Office on 13 November, stating:


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: My purpose was ... to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the U.S. and Iran] with a new relationship ... At the same time we undertook this initiative, we made clear that Iran must oppose all forms of international terrorism as a condition of progress in our relationship. The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The scandal was compounded when Oliver North destroyed or hid pertinent documents between 21 November and 25 November 1986. During North's trial in 1989, his secretary, Fawn Hall, testified extensively about helping North alter and shred official United States National Security Council (NSC) documents from the White House. According to "The New York Times", enough documents were put into a government shredder to jam it. Hall also testified that she smuggled classified documents out of the Old Executive Office Building by concealing them in her boots and dress. North's explanation for destroying some documents was to protect the lives of individuals involved in Iran and Contra operations. It was not until 1993, years after the trial, that North's notebooks were made public, and only after the National Security Archive and Public Citizen sued the Office of the Independent Counsel under the Freedom of Information Act.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: During the trial, North testified that on 21, 22 or 24 November, he witnessed Poindexter destroy what may have been the only signed copy of a presidential covert-action finding that sought to authorize CIA participation in the November 1985 Hawk missile shipment to Iran. U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese admitted on 25 November that profits from weapons sales to Iran were made available to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. On the same day, John Poindexter resigned, and President Reagan fired Oliver North. Poindexter was replaced by Frank Carlucci on 2 December 1986.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: When the story broke, many legal and constitutional scholars expressed dismay that the NSC, which was supposed to be just an advisory body to assist the President with formulating foreign policy, had "gone operational" by becoming an executive body covertly executing foreign policy on its own. The National Security Act of 1947, which created the NSC, gave it the vague right to perform "such other functions and duties related to the intelligence as the National Security Council may from time to time direct." However, the NSC had usually, although not always, acted as an advisory agency until the Reagan administration when the NSC had "gone operational", a situation that was condemned by both the Tower Commission and by Congress as a departure from the norm. The American historian James Canham-Clyne asserted that Iran–Contra affair and the NSC "going operational" were not departures from the norm, but were the logical and natural consequence of existence of the "national security state", the plethora of shadowy government agencies with multi-million dollar budgets operating with little oversight from Congress, the courts or the media, and for whom upholding national security justified almost everything. Canham-Clyne argued that for the "national security state", the law was an obstacle to be surmounted rather than something to uphold and that the Iran–Contra affair was just "business as usual", something he asserted that the media missed by focusing on the NSC having "gone operational."


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: In "Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987", journalist Bob Woodward chronicled the role of the CIA in facilitating the transfer of funds from the Iran arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras spearheaded by Oliver North. According to Woodward, then-Director of the CIA William J. Casey admitted to him in February 1987 that he was aware of the diversion of funds to the Contras. The controversial admission occurred while Casey was hospitalized for a stroke, and, according to his wife, was unable to communicate. On 6 May 1987, William Casey died the day after Congress began public hearings on Iran–Contra. Independent Counsel, Lawrence Walsh later wrote: "Independent Counsel obtained no documentary evidence showing Casey knew about or approved the diversion. The only direct testimony linking Casey to early knowledge of the diversion came from [Oliver] North." Gust Avrakodos, who was responsible for the arms supplies to the Afghans at this time, was aware of the operation as well and strongly opposed it, in particular the diversion of funds allotted to the Afghan operation. According to his Middle Eastern experts, the operation was pointless because the moderates in Iran were not in a position to challenge the fundamentalists. However, he was overruled by Clair George.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: On 25 November 1986, President Reagan announced the creation of a Special Review Board to look into the matter; the following day, he appointed former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to serve as members. This Presidential Commission took effect on 1 December and became known as the Tower Commission. The main objectives of the commission were to inquire into "the circumstances surrounding the Iran–Contra matter, other case studies that might reveal strengths and weaknesses in the operation of the National Security Council system under stress, and the manner in which that system has served eight different presidents since its inception in 1947". The Tower Commission was the first presidential commission to review and evaluate the National Security Council.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: President Reagan appeared before the Tower Commission on 2 December 1986, to answer questions regarding his involvement in the affair. When asked about his role in authorizing the arms deals, he first stated that he had; later, he appeared to contradict himself by stating that he had no recollection of doing so. In his 1990 autobiography, "An American Life", Reagan acknowledges authorizing the shipments to Israel.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The report published by the Tower Commission was delivered to the president on 26 February 1987. The Commission had interviewed 80 witnesses to the scheme, including Reagan, and two of the arms trade middlemen: Manucher Ghorbanifar and Adnan Khashoggi. The 200-page report was the most comprehensive of any released, criticizing the actions of Oliver North, John Poindexter, Caspar Weinberger, and others. It determined that President Reagan did not have knowledge of the extent of the program, especially about the diversion of funds to the Contras, although it argued that the president ought to have had better control of the National Security Council staff. The report heavily criticized Reagan for not properly supervising his subordinates or being aware of their actions. A major result of the Tower Commission was the consensus that Reagan should have listened to his National Security Advisor more, thereby placing more power in the hands of that chair.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: 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. 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." 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". 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".


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Reagan expressed regret with regard to the situation in a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on 4 March 1987, and in two other speeches. Reagan had not spoken to the American people directly for three months amidst the scandal, and he offered the following explanation for his silence:


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The reason I haven't spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion. There's been enough of that.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Finally, the president acknowledged that his previous assertions that the U.S. did not trade arms for hostages were incorrect:


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Reagan's role in these transactions is still not definitively known. It is unclear exactly what Reagan knew and when, and whether the arms sales were motivated by his desire to save the U.S. hostages. Oliver North wrote that "Ronald Reagan knew of and approved a great deal of what went on with both the Iranian initiative and private efforts on behalf of the contras and he received regular, detailed briefings on both...I have no doubt that he was told about the use of residuals for the Contras, and that he approved it. Enthusiastically." Handwritten notes by Defense Secretary Weinberger indicate that the President was aware of potential hostage transfers with Iran, as well as the sale of Hawk and TOW missiles to what he was told were "moderate elements" within Iran. Notes taken by Weinberger on 7 December 1985 record that Reagan said that "he could of illegality but he couldn't that 'big strong President Reagan passed up a chance to . The Republican-written "Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran–Contra Affair" made the following conclusion: There is some question and dispute about precisely the level at which he chose to follow the operation details. There is no doubt, however, ... [that] the President set the US policy towards Nicaragua, with few if any ambiguities, and then left subordinates more or less free to implement it.Domestically, the affair precipitated a drop in President Reagan's popularity. His approval ratings suffered "the largest single drop for any U.S. president in history", from 67% to 46% in November 1986, according to a "The New York Times"/CBS News poll. The "Teflon President", as Reagan was nicknamed by critics, survived the affair, however, and his approval rating recovered.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Internationally, the damage was more severe. Magnus Ranstorp wrote, "U.S. willingness to engage in concessions with Iran and the Hezbollah not only signaled to its adversaries that hostage-taking was an extremely useful instrument in extracting political and financial concessions for the West but also undermined any credibility of U.S. criticism of other states' deviation from the principles of no-negotiation and no concession to terrorists and their demands."


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: In Iran, Mehdi Hashemi, the leaker of the scandal, was executed in 1987, allegedly for activities unrelated to the scandal. Though Hashemi made a full video confession to numerous serious charges, some observers find the coincidence of his leak and the subsequent prosecution highly suspicious.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: In 1994, just five years after leaving office, President Reagan announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Lawrence Walsh, who was appointed Independent Counsel in 1986 to investigate the transactions later implied Reagan's declining health may have played a role in his handling of the situation. However, Walsh did note that he believed President Reagan's "instincts for the country’s good were right".


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The Independent Counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, chose not to re-try North or Poindexter. In total, several dozen people were investigated by Walsh's office.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: On 27 July 1986, Israeli counterterrorism expert Amiram Nir briefed Vice President Bush in Jerusalem about the weapon sales to Iran.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: In an interview with "The Washington Post" in August 1987, Bush stated that he was denied information about the operation and did not know about the diversion of funds. Bush said that he had not advised Reagan to reject the initiative because he had not heard strong objections to it. The "Post" quoted him as stating, "We were not in the loop." The following month, Bush recounted meeting Nir in his September 1987 autobiography "Looking Forward", stating that he began to develop misgivings about the Iran initiative. He wrote that he did not learn the full extent of the Iran dealings until he was briefed by Senator David Durenberger regarding a Senate inquiry into them. Bush added the briefing with Durenberger left him with the feeling he had "been deliberately excluded from key meetings involving details of the Iran operation".


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: In January 1988 during a live interview with Bush on "CBS Evening News", Dan Rather told Bush that his unwillingness to speak about the scandal led "people to say 'either George Bush was irrelevant or he was ineffective, he set himself outside of the loop. Bush replied, "May I explain what I mean by 'out of the loop'? No operational role."


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Although Bush publicly insisted that he knew little about the operation, his statements were contradicted by excerpts of his diary released by the White House in January 1993. An entry dated 5 November 1986 stated: "On the news at this time is the question of the hostages... I'm one of the few people that know fully the details, and there is a lot of flak and misinformation out there. It is not a subject we can talk about..."


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: On 24 December 1992, after he had been defeated for reelection, lame duck President George H. W. Bush pardoned five administration officials who had been found guilty on charges relating to the affair. They were:


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Bush also pardoned Caspar Weinberger, who had not yet come to trial. Attorney General William P. Barr advised the President on these pardons, especially that of Caspar Weinberger.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: In response to these Bush pardons, Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, who headed the investigation of Reagan administration officials' criminal conduct in the Iran–Contra scandal, stated that "the Iran–Contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed." Walsh noted that in issuing the pardons Bush appears to have been preempting being implicated himself in the crimes of Iran–Contra by evidence that was to come to light during the Weinberger trial, and noted that there was a pattern of "deception and obstruction" by Bush, Weinberger and other senior Reagan administration officials.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The Iran–Contra affair and the ensuing deception to protect senior administration officials (including President Reagan) was cast as an example of post-truth politics by Malcolm Byrne of George Washington University.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The 100th Congress formed a Joint Committee of the United States Congress (Congressional Committees Investigating The Iran–Contra Affair) and held hearings in mid-1987. Transcripts were published as: "Iran–Contra Investigation: Joint Hearings Before the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition and the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran" (U.S. GPO 1987–88). A closed Executive Session heard classified testimony from North and Poindexter; this transcript was published in a redacted format. The joint committee's final report was "Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran–Contra Affair With Supplemental, Minority, and Additional Views" (U.S. GPO 17 November 1987). The records of the committee are at the National Archives, but many are still non-public.


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: Testimony was also heard before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and can be found in the Congressional Record for those bodies. The Senate Intelligence Committee produced two reports: "Preliminary Inquiry into the Sale of Arms to Iran and Possible Diversion of Funds to the Nicaraguan Resistance" (2 February 1987) and "Were Relevant Documents Withheld from the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran–Contra Affair?" (June 1989).


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The Tower Commission Report was published as the "Report of the President's Special Review Board" (U.S. GPO 26 February 1987). It was also published as "The Tower Commission Report" by Bantam Books ().


title: Iran–Contra affair

text: The Office of Independent Counsel/Walsh investigation produced four interim reports to Congress. Its final report was published as the "Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters". Walsh's records are available at the National Archives.


title: Brian De Palma

text: Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for his work in the suspense, crime and psychological thriller genres. De Palma was a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors.


title: Brian De Palma

text: His direction often makes use of quotations from other films or cinematic styles, and bears the influence of filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard.


title: Brian De Palma

text: His films have been criticized for their violence and sexual content but have also been championed by American critics such as Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael. His films include mainstream box office hits such as "Carrie" (1976), "Dressed to Kill" (1980), "Scarface" (1983), "The Untouchables" (1987), and "" (1996), as well as cult favorites such as "Sisters" (1972), "Phantom of the Paradise" (1974), "Blow Out" (1981), "Casualties of War" (1989), and "Carlito's Way" (1993).


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma was born on September 11, 1940, in Newark, New Jersey, the youngest of three boys. His Italian-American parents were Vivienne DePalma (née Muti), and Anthony DePalma, an orthopedic surgeon who was the son of immigrants from Alberona, Province of Foggia. He was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, and attended various Protestant and Quaker schools, eventually graduating from Friends' Central School. He had a poor relationship with his father, and would secretly follow him to record his adulterous behavior; this would eventually inspire the teenage character played by Keith Gordon in De Palma's 1980 film "Dressed to Kill". When he was in high school, he built computers. He won a regional science-fair prize for a project titled "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations".


title: Brian De Palma

text: Enrolled at Columbia University as a physics student, De Palma became enraptured with the filmmaking process after viewing "Citizen Kane" and "Vertigo". After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1962, De Palma enrolled at the newly coed Sarah Lawrence College as a graduate student in their theater department, earning an M.A. in the discipline in 1964 and becoming one of the first male students among a female population. Once there, influences as various as drama teacher Wilford Leach, the Maysles brothers, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Andy Warhol, and Alfred Hitchcock impressed upon De Palma the many styles and themes that would shape his own cinema in the coming decades.


title: Brian De Palma

text: An early association with a young Robert De Niro resulted in "The Wedding Party". The film, which was co-directed with Leach and producer Cynthia Munroe, had been shot in 1963 but remained unreleased until 1969, when De Palma's star had risen sufficiently within the Greenwich Village filmmaking scene. De Niro was unknown at the time; the credits mistakenly display his name as "Robert ". The film is noteworthy for its invocation of silent film techniques and an insistence on the jump-cut for effect. De Palma followed this style with various small films for the NAACP and the Treasury Department.


title: Brian De Palma

text: During the 1960s, De Palma began making a living producing documentary films, notably "The Responsive Eye", a 1966 movie about "The Responsive Eye" op-art exhibit curated by William Seitz for MOMA in 1965. In an interview with Joseph Gelmis from 1969, De Palma described the film as "very good and very successful. It's distributed by Pathe Contemporary and makes lots of money. I shot it in four hours, with synched sound. I had two other guys shooting people's reactions to the paintings, and the paintings themselves."


title: Brian De Palma

text: "Dionysus in '69" (1969) was De Palma's other major documentary from this period. The film records the Performance Group's performance of Euripides' "The Bacchae", starring, amongst others, De Palma regular William Finley. The play is noted for breaking traditional barriers between performers and audience. The film's most striking quality is its extensive use of the split-screen. De Palma recalls that he was "floored" by this performance upon first sight, and in 1973 recounts how he "began to try and figure out a way to capture it on film. I came up with the idea of split-screen, to be able to show the actual audience involvement, to trace the life of the audience and that of the play as they merge in and out of each other."


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma's most significant features from this decade are "Greetings" (1968) and "Hi, Mom!" (1970). Both films star Robert De Niro and espouse a leftist revolutionary viewpoint common to the era in which they were released. "Greetings" was entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won a Silver Bear award. His other major film from this period is the slasher comedy "Murder a la Mod". Each of these films experiments with narrative and intertextuality, reflecting De Palma's stated intention to become the "American Godard" while integrating several of the themes which permeated Hitchcock's work.


title: Brian De Palma

text: In 1970, De Palma left New York for Hollywood at age thirty to make "Get to Know Your Rabbit", starring Orson Welles and Tommy Smothers. Making the film was a crushing experience for De Palma, as Smothers did not like many of De Palma's ideas.


title: Brian De Palma

text: After several small, studio and independently-released films that included stand-outs "Sisters", "Phantom of the Paradise", and "Obsession", De Palma directed a film adaptation of the 1974 novel "Carrie" by Stephen King. Though some see the psychic thriller as De Palma's bid for a blockbuster, the project was in fact small, underfunded by United Artists, and well under the cultural radar during the early months of production, as the source novel had yet to climb the bestseller list. De Palma gravitated toward the project and changed crucial plot elements based upon his own predilections, not the saleability of the novel. The cast was young and relatively new, though Sissy Spacek and John Travolta had gained attention for previous work in, respectively, film and episodic sitcoms. "Carrie" became De Palma's first genuine box-office success, garnering Spacek and Piper Laurie Oscar nominations for their performances. Pre-production for the film had coincided with the casting process for George Lucas's "Star Wars", and many of the actors cast in De Palma's film had been earmarked as contenders for Lucas's movie, and vice versa. The "shock ending" finale is effective even while it upholds horror-film convention, its suspense sequences are buttressed by teen comedy tropes, and its use of split-screen, split-diopter and slow motion shots tell the story visually rather than through dialogue. As for Lucas' project, De Palma complained in an early viewing of "Star Wars" that the opening text crawl was poorly written and volunteered to help edit the text to a more concise and engaging form.


title: Brian De Palma

text: The financial and critical success of "Carrie" allowed De Palma to pursue more personal material. "The Demolished Man" was a novel that had fascinated De Palma since the late 1950s and appealed to his background in mathematics and avant-garde storytelling. Its unconventional unfolding of plot (exemplified in its mathematical layout of dialogue) and its stress on perception have analogs in De Palma's filmmaking. He sought to adapt it numerous times, though the project would carry a substantial price tag, and has yet to appear on-screen (Steven Spielberg's 2002 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report" bears striking similarities to De Palma's visual style and some of the themes of "The Demolished Man"). The result of his experience with adapting "The Demolished Man" was the 1978 science fiction psychic thriller film "The Fury", starring Kirk Douglas, Carrie Snodgress, John Cassavetes and Amy Irving. The film was admired by Jean-Luc Godard, who featured a clip in his mammoth "Histoire(s) du cinéma", and Pauline Kael, who championed both "The Fury" and De Palma. The film boasted a larger budget than "Carrie", though the consensus view at the time was that De Palma was repeating himself, with diminishing returns. As a film, it retains De Palma's considerable visual flair, but points more toward his work in mainstream entertainments such as "", the thematic complex thriller for which he is now better known.


title: Brian De Palma

text: The 1980s were marked by some of De Palma's best known films including "Dressed to Kill" (1980), "Blow Out" (1981), "Scarface" (1983), "Body Double" (1984), and "The Untouchables" (1987). In 1984, he directed the music video for Bruce Springsteen's single "Dancing in the Dark".


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma's career continued over the next two decades with films in a variety of genres. "The Bonfire of the Vanities" (1990) was a notorious failure with both critics and audiences but De Palma had subsequent successes with "Raising Cain" (1992) and "Carlito's Way" (1993) with "" (1996) becoming his highest grossing film and "."


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma's work after "Mission: Impossible" has been less well received. His ensuing films "Snake Eyes" (1998), "Mission to Mars" (2000), and "Femme Fatale" (2002) all failed at the box office and received generally poor reviews, though "Femme Fatale" has since been revived in the eyes of many film critics and became a cult classic. His 2006 adaptation of "The Black Dahlia" was also unsuccessful and is currently the last movie De Palma has directed with backing from Hollywood.


title: Brian De Palma

text: A political controversy erupted over the portrayal of US soldiers in De Palma's 2007 film "Redacted". Loosely based on the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings by American soldiers in Iraq, the film echoes themes that appeared in De Palma's Vietnam War film, "Casualties of War" (1989). "Redacted" received a limited release in the United States and grossed less than $1 million against a $5 million budget.


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma's output has slowed since the release of "Redacted". In 2012, his film "Passion" starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival but received mixed reviews and was financially unsuccessful.


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma's next project was the 2019 thriller "Domino." It received generally negative reviews and was released direct-to-VOD in the United States, grossing less than half a million dollars internationally. De Palma has also expressed dissatisfaction with both the production of the film and the final product.


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma's films can fall into two categories, his psychological thrillers ("Sisters", "Body Double", "Obsession", "Dressed to Kill", "Blow Out", "Raising Cain") and his mainly commercial films ("Scarface", "The Untouchables", "Carlito's Way", and "Mission: Impossible"). He has often produced "De Palma" films one after the other before going on to direct a different genre, but would always return to his familiar territory. Because of the subject matter and graphic violence of some of De Palma's films, such as "Dressed to Kill", "Scarface" and "Body Double", they are often at the center of controversy with the Motion Picture Association of America, film critics and the viewing public.


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma frequently quotes and references other directors' work. Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blowup" and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" plots were used for the basis of "Blow Out". "The Untouchables" finale shoot out in the train station is a clear borrowing from the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's "The Battleship Potemkin". The main plot from "Rear Window" was used for "Body Double", while it also used elements of "Vertigo". "Vertigo" was also the basis for "Obsession". "Dressed to Kill" was a note-for-note homage to Hitchcock's "Psycho", including such moments as the surprise death of the lead actress and the exposition scene by the psychiatrist at the end.


title: Brian De Palma

text: Film critics have often noted De Palma's penchant for unusual camera angles and compositions. He often frames characters against the background using a canted angle shot. Split-screen techniques have been used to show two separate events happening simultaneously. To emphasize the dramatic impact of a certain scene De Palma has employed a 360-degree camera pan. Slow sweeping, panning and tracking shots are often used throughout his films, often through precisely-choreographed long takes lasting for minutes without cutting. Split focus shots, often referred to as "di-opt", are used by De Palma to emphasize the foreground person/object while simultaneously keeping a background person/object in focus. Slow-motion is frequently used in his films to increase suspense.


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma has been married and divorced three times, to actress Nancy Allen (1979–1983), producer Gale Anne Hurd (1991–1993), and Darnell Gregorio (1995–1997). He has one daughter from his marriage to Hurd, Lolita de Palma, born in 1991, and one daughter from his marriage to Gregorio, Piper De Palma, born in 1996. He resides in Manhattan, New York.


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma is often cited as a leading member of the New Hollywood generation of film directors, a distinct pedigree who either emerged from film schools or are overtly cine-literate. His contemporaries include Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, John Milius, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, and Ridley Scott. His artistry in directing and use of cinematography and suspense in several of his films has often been compared to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Psychologists have been intrigued by De Palma's fascination with pathology, by the aberrant behavior aroused in characters who find themselves manipulated by others.


title: Brian De Palma

text: De Palma has encouraged and fostered the filmmaking careers of directors such as Mark Romanek and Keith Gordon, the latter of whom collaborated with him twice as an actor, both in 1980's "Home Movies" and "Dressed to Kill". Filmmakers influenced by De Palma include Terrence Malick, Quentin Tarantino, Ronny Yu, Don Mancini, Nacho Vigalondo, and Jack Thomas Smith. During an interview with De Palma, Quentin Tarantino said that "Blow Out" is one of his all-time favorite films, and that after watching "Scarface" he knew how to make his own film. John Travolta's performance as Jack Terry in "Blow Out" even resulted in Tarantino casting him as Vincent Vega in his 1994 film "Pulp Fiction", which would go on to reinvigorate Travolta's then-declining career.


title: Brian De Palma

text: Critics who frequently admire De Palma's work include Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert. Kael wrote in her review of "Blow Out", "At forty, Brian De Palma has more than twenty years of moviemaking behind him, and he has been growing better and better. Each time a new film of his opens, everything he has done before seems to have been preparation for it." In his review of "Femme Fatale", Roger Ebert wrote about the director: "De Palma deserves more honor as a director. Consider also these titles: "Sisters", "Blow Out", "The Fury", "Dressed to Kill", "Carrie", "Scarface", "Wise Guys", "Casualties of War", "Carlito's Way", "Mission: Impossible". Yes, there are a few failures along the way ("Snake Eyes", "Mission to Mars", "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), but look at the range here, and reflect that these movies contain treasure for those who admire the craft as well as the story, who sense the glee with which De Palma manipulates images and characters for the simple joy of being good at it. It's not just that he sometimes works in the style of Hitchcock, but that he has the nerve to."


title: Brian De Palma

text: The influential French film magazine "Cahiers du Cinéma" has placed five of De Palma's films ("Carlito's Way", "", "Snake Eyes", "Mission to Mars", and "Redacted") on their annual top ten list, with "Redacted" placing first on the 2008 list. The magazine also listed "Carlito's Way" as the greatest film of the 1990s.


title: Brian De Palma

text: His life and career in his own words was the subject of the 2015 documentary "De Palma," directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow.


title: Brian De Palma

text: Julie Salamon has written that critics have accused De Palma of being "a perverse misogynist", to which De Palma has responded with, "I'm always attacked for having an erotic, sexist approach chopping up women, putting women in peril. I'm making suspense movies! What else is going to happen to them?"


title: Brian De Palma

text: His films have also been interpreted as feminist and examined for their perceived queer affinities. In "Film Comment" "Queer and Now and Then" column on "Femme Fatale", film critic Michael Koresky writes that "De Palma's films radiate an undeniable queer energy" and notes the "intense appeal" De Palma's films have for gay critics. In her book "The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema", Linda Ruth Williams writes that "De Palma understood the cinematic potency of dangerous fucking, perhaps earlier than his feminist detractors".


title: Brian De Palma

text: Robin Wood considered "Sisters" an overtly feminist film, writing that "one can define the monster of "Sisters" as women's liberation; adding only that the film follows the time-honored horror film tradition of making the monster emerge as the most sympathetic character and its emotional center." Pauline Kael's review of "Casualties of War", "A Wounded Apparition", describes the film as "feminist" and notes that "De Palma was always involved in examining (and sometimes satirizing) victimization, but he was often accused of being a victimizer". Helen Grace, in a piece for "Lola", writes that upon seeing "Dressed to Kill" amidst calls for a boycott from feminist groups Women Against Violence Against Women and Women Against Pornography, that the film "seemed to say more about masculine anxiety than about the fears that women were expressing in relation to the film".


title: Brian De Palma

text: David Thomson wrote in his entry for De Palma, "There is a self-conscious cunning in De Palma's work, ready to control everything except his own cruelty and indifference." Matt Zoller Seitz objected to this characterisation, writing that there are films from the director which can be seen as "straightforwardly empathetic and/or moralistic".


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In October 2017, "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker" reported that dozens of women had accused film producer Harvey Weinstein of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse over a period of at least 30 years. Over 80 women in the film industry eventually accused Weinstein of such acts. Weinstein denied "any non-consensual sex". Shortly after, he was dismissed from The Weinstein Company (TWC), expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and other professional associations, and retired from public view.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Criminal investigations into complaints from at least six women took place in Los Angeles, New York City, and London. In May 2018, Weinstein was arrested in New York and charged with rape and other offenses. In February 2020, he was found guilty of rape in the third degree and a criminal sexual act. In March 2020, he was sentenced to 23 years of imprisonment.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker" were awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their coverage of Weinstein. The scandal triggered many similar allegations against powerful men around the world, and led to the ousting of many of them from their positions. It also led a great number of women to share their own experiences of sexual assault, harassment, or rape on social media under the hashtag #MeToo. The scandal's impact on powerful men in various industries came to be called the Weinstein effect.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Harvey Weinstein and his brother, Bob Weinstein, formed the film production company Miramax and led the company from 1979 to 2005.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: That company was purchased by The Walt Disney Company in June 1993, though the Weinsteins continued to run the company until September 2005, when they left the company to run The Weinstein Company (TWC), which they had founded in March.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Rumors of Harvey Weinstein's "casting couch" practices circulated in Hollywood for years, and entertainment figures at times alluded to them. As early as 1998, Gwyneth Paltrow said on "Late Show with David Letterman" that Weinstein "will coerce you to do a thing or two". In 2005, Courtney Love advised young actresses in an interview, "If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party in the Four Seasons, don't go." In 2010, an article titled "Harvey's Girls" for "Pajiba" alluded to Weinstein's "casting couch" reputation: "Every few years, Harvey picks a new girl as his pet." In 2012, a character on the TV series "30 Rock" said: "I'm not afraid of anyone in show business: I turned down intercourse with Harvey Weinstein on no less than three occasions – out of five." While announcing the 2013 nominees for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, Seth MacFarlane joked: "Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein." After the allegations were published, director Quentin Tarantino said that he had known about Weinstein harassing actresses for decades, and had confronted him about it. Ivana Lowell wrote in her book "Why Not Say What Happened?", published in 2010, about misbehavior by Weinstein when she worked for the books division of Miramax. The incidents described were in her office when she was alone with Harvey Weinstein, and in her home when a female friend of hers was present. She wrote that she "knew about Harvey's reputation as a womanizer; tales of his trying to seduce every young actress in town were infamous".


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Journalists wrote or attempted to write about Weinstein's alleged behavior. David Carr found that no one allegedly assaulted by Weinstein would speak on the record; Ken Auletta and his editors decided he could not mention an assault allegation without cooperation from the victim. In 2015, Jordan Sargent wrote in his Gawker article "Tell Us What You Know About Harvey Weinstein's 'Open Secret'" that "rumors of the powerful producer leveraging his industry power for sexual satisfaction—consensual or otherwise—have tended to remain unaired, confined to hushed conversation and seedier gossip-blog comment threads." "The New York Times" later wrote that Weinstein had built a "wall of invulnerability", in part through his support of leading Democratic politicians. He boasted being friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. The Clintons continued longstanding close relationships with him despite alleged warnings about Weinstein to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign from Lena Dunham and Tina Brown.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In 2015, "The New York Times" reported that Weinstein was questioned by police "after a 22-year-old woman accused him of touching her inappropriately". The woman, Italian model Ambra Gutierrez, cooperated with the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to obtain an audio recording where Weinstein admitted to having inappropriately touched her. As the police investigation progressed and became public, tabloids published negative stories about Gutierrez that portrayed her as an opportunist. American Media, publisher of the "National Enquirer", allegedly agreed to help suppress the allegations by Gutierrez and Rose McGowan. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. decided not to file charges against Weinstein, citing insufficient evidence of criminal intent, against the advice of local police who considered the evidence sufficient. The New York district attorney's office and the NYPD blamed each other for failing to bring charges.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In July 2018, after many allegations and criminal charges of sexual misconduct, Greek journalist Taki Theodoracopulos said to "The Spectator" that his friend Weinstein told him in an interview, "Yes, I did offer them [girls] acting jobs in exchange for sex, but so did and still does everyone." Weinstein's lawyer later said he had been present, and Weinstein did not make that statement. Theodoracopulos stated he "may have misrepresented" Weinstein. Weinstein's quotes and some of the author's observations were later removed from the article which only appeared on the magazine's website.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Substantial allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein were first reported by "The New York Times" journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey on October 5, 2017. The story accused Weinstein of three decades of sexually harassing and paying eight settlements to actresses and female production assistants, temps, and other employees who worked at Miramax and TWC. The investigation, which came on the heels of a successful exposé of Bill O'Reilly by "The New York Times", had taken roughly five months.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Five days later, on October 10, longtime NBC News correspondent Ronan Farrow reported in "The New Yorker" further allegations that Weinstein had sexually assaulted or harassed 13 women, and raped three. Farrow said he had wanted to break the story months earlier with NBC, but implied the network was under pressure not to publish, which NBC denied. According to Farrow, 16 former or current executives and assistants connected with Weinstein said they had witnessed or had been informed of Weinstein's non-consensual sexual advances to women. Four actresses relayed their suspicion that, after rejecting Weinstein's advances and complaining about him, he had them removed from projects or persuaded others to remove them. A number of Farrow's sources said Weinstein had referred to his success in planting stories in the media about individuals who had crossed him. "The New Yorker" also published the 2015 audio recording in which Weinstein admits to groping Gutierrez.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In November 2017, Farrow reported that Weinstein had, through the lawyer David Boies, employed private intelligence agencies Kroll and Black Cube and private investigator Jack Palladino to spy on and influence Weinstein's alleged victims as well as Kantor, Twohey, Farrow and other reporters who were investigating Weinstein. He took these actions, according to Farrow, to prevent his sexual conduct from becoming public.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Since the initial reporting in 2017, over 80 women accused Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault or rape. In November 2017, a group of the alleged victims, led by Italian actress Asia Argento, released a list of over 100 alleged instances of sexual abuse by Weinstein. The incidents in the list date from 1980 to 2015 and include eighteen allegations of rape.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: According to the women's reports, Weinstein invited young actresses or models into a hotel room or office on the pretext of discussing their career, and then he demanded massages or sex. He told them that complying with his demands would help their careers and repeatedly used Gwyneth Paltrow as an example, telling them that she had had sex with him, unbeknownst to the actress. Paltrow had rebuffed his propositions, but he told multiple young actresses that she had slept with him as a "weapon" to pressure them into complying with his demands.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Former colleagues and collaborators of Weinstein told reporters that these activities were enabled by employees, associates and agents who set up these meetings, as well as lawyers and publicists who suppressed complaints with payments and threats. Bob Weinstein, for example, was allegedly involved in three settlements with accusers, the first in 1990. One Miramax executive reported being harassed by Weinstein after being promoted and praised by him; she and other employees allegedly found that the HR department protected Weinstein more than they did his employees.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In response to "The New York Times" report in 2017, Weinstein said: "I appreciate the way I've behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it." He said he was due to take a sabbatical and was working with therapists to "deal with this issue head on". His consulting lawyer, Lisa Bloom, described him as "an old dinosaur learning new ways". Bloom was criticized for her handling of Weinstein's defense and ended her involvement for Weinstein on October 7, 2017. Two days later, Weinstein hired public relations company Sitrick and Company, which specializes in crisis PR; they dropped Weinstein as a client on April 3, 2018. Weinstein's attorney Charles Harder, who was then known for filing the suit that bankrupted Gawker, said his client would be suing "The New York Times", but by October 15, 2017, Harder was no longer working for Weinstein.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Subsequent reports and accusations of rape were likewise met with the response that "any allegations of nonconsensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein."


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On January 30, 2018, Weinstein's attorney released private emails from Ben Affleck and Jill Messick, Rose McGowan's former manager, that both contradicted McGowan's version of the incident. On February 7, 2018, Messick committed suicide. Both the released emails and McGowan's own accusations against Messick led to increased negative public and media attention towards Messick, including cyberbullying. Messick's family blamed Weinstein, McGowan, the media and the public for her death.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In March 2018, Weinstein's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said in an interview with "The Times" (UK): "The casting couch in Hollywood was not invented by Harvey Weinstein. … If a woman decides that she needs to have sex with a Hollywood producer to advance her career and actually does it and finds the whole thing offensive, that's not rape." Addressing these women, Brafman said, "You made a conscious decision that you're willing to do something that is personally offensive in order to advance your career."


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Writers from The Michigan Daily and Quartz described Weinstein's defense as gaslighting for orchestrating extraordinary efforts to undermine the perceptions and reality of women he sexually preyed upon, the journalists investigating their stories, and the public. He hired Lisa Bloom, the high-profile attorney who represented women sexually abused by Bill Cosby and women who accused Bill O’Reilly, and Donald Trump of sexual misconduct, for her expertise, including intimate knowledge of how to prey on the vulnerabilities of sexual abuse survivors. Journalist Ronan Farrow has alleged that NBC did not air his investigation of Weinstein because Weinstein threatened to disclose the sexual indiscretions of NBC's "The Today Show" host Matt Lauer and MSNBC’s president, Phil Griffin. Farrow also alleges that Weinstein retained the intelligence/espionage firm, Black Cube, which Forbes characterizes as the "Mossad" of the "business world", to uncover vulnerabilities to dissuade journalists who were closing in on Weinstein from going public. Weinstein granted interviews to the "New York Post" to tout his contributions to society including helping women advance in Hollywood and his work on a charity concert that raised $100 million for the 9/11 first responders through the Robin Hood Foundation.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In October 2017, the New York City Police Department (NYPD), London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) were reviewing allegations against Weinstein following reports about his conduct. The London investigation—dubbed "Operation Kaguyak"—reportedly investigated fifteen alleged sexual assaults by Weinstein, dating back to the 1990s. The UK Crown Prosecution Service has authorized charging Weinstein over alleged indecent assaults that are claimed to have happened in 1996.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On November 3, 2017, the NYPD were preparing a warrant to arrest Weinstein for his alleged rape of Paz de la Huerta, an investigation still pending as of May 2018 and unrelated to the later arrest of Weinstein.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On May 25, 2018, Weinstein was charged by the New York County District Attorney's Office with "rape, criminal sex act, sex abuse and sexual misconduct for incidents involving two separate women". After surrendering to the New York City Police Department (NYPD), he was arrested and appeared in the New York City Criminal Court before Judge Kevin McGrath. Weinstein was released the same day on a $1 million bail. He agreed to surrender his passport and wear an ankle monitor confining him to Connecticut and New York. In July 2018, Weinstein was indicted on an additional charge of "predatory sexual assault" against a woman he allegedly forced into oral sex in 2006. On October 11, 2018, a judge dismissed one of the sex assault charges.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Weinstein was initially represented by Benjamin Brafman, but parted ways with Brafman in January 2019, and hired Donna Rotunno as his defense counsel. Weinstein was tried in February 2020 in Manhattan Supreme Court. At the trial, six women testified that Weinstein had sexually assaulted them; the charges themselves rested on the complaints of two women, a former production assistant and a former actress, who gave the jury accounts from 2006 and 2013, respectively. On February 24, 2020, the jury found Weinstein guilty of rape in the third degree and a criminal sexual act in the first degree, and not guilty on three counts including two more serious charges of predatory sexual assault.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: After the verdict, Weinstein was remanded to jail, where he was housed in Rikers Island's infirmary unit. Justice James A. Burke sentenced Weinstein to 23 years in prison on March 11, 2020. Weinstein was 67 years of age and in poor health at the time of sentencing. On March 18, 2020, he was transferred to Wende Correctional Facility.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On June 2, 2022, a unanimous five-judge panel of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Judicial Department rejected Weinstein's appeal against his sentence. His attorneys announced an appeal to the New York Court of Appeals.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On January 6, 2020, the Los Angeles County District Attorney announced separate criminal charges against Weinstein, allegedly raping one woman and sexually assaulting another in separate incidents over a two-day period in 2013. Weinstein is charged with one felony count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery by restraint. On April 10, 2020, Weinstein was charged with sexual battery by restraint against a third victim, related to an incident in 2010. On October 2, 2020, Weinstein was charged with another six additional sexual assault charges from three more incidents in Beverly Hills hotel rooms: three counts of forcible rape and three counts of forcible oral copulation.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On April 12, 2021, Weinstein was formally indicted on eleven counts of sexual assault in Los Angeles County; this was a procedural matter allowing the trial to proceed more quickly. On the same day, Weinstein appeared at a video hearing regarding his extradition to California. On July 20, 2021, Weinstein was extradited to California to face charges of rape and sexual assault. He was flown to Los Angeles and taken to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: The trial in Los Angeles commenced in October 2022. Weinstein was charged with 11 counts of rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual battery, stemming from alleged acts between 2004 and 2013. He was found guilty of 3 of 7 charges (four of the initial 11 charges were dropped) on December 19, 2022. Convictions included charges of rape, forced oral copulation and third degree sexual misconduct.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On October 23, 2017, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman opened a civil rights investigation into TWC. He issued a subpoena for records related to sexual harassment and discrimination complaints at the company.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In January 2018, Weinstein's former personal assistant Sandeep Rehal sued both Weinstein brothers and TWC for discrimination and harassment, alleging that much of her work involved "catering to Harvey Weinstein's sexual appetites and activities", including working while he was naked. Weinstein denied these allegations.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On April 30, 2018, Ashley Judd sued Weinstein for allegedly making false statements about her after she rejected his sexual requests, which damaged her career and cost her a role in a "Lord of the Rings" movie.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On May 24, 2019, multiple press reports stated Weinstein had offered to settle civil lawsuits against him for $44million. Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the settlement in July 2020, criticizing several of the terms including that "Harvey Weinstein can get a defense fund ahead of the claimants is obnoxious". In January 2021 a new $17million settlement was agreed to in bankruptcy court.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In October 2020, Weinstein was sued by an anonymous woman for allegedly raping her at his home during a 2000 presidential debate.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In March 2021, actress Hayley Gripp sued Weinstein alleging that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in a suite at Beverly Hills hotel room in November 2012 when she was 19 years old. Weinstein has denied the allegation.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In December 2021, a federal judge dismissed a racketeering lawsuit Rose McGowan filed against Harvey Weinstein and others.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Weinstein's alleged actions were widely criticized by prominent persons in entertainment and politics. They triggered a public discussion about, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) put it, "willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment" in the film industry.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On October 8, 2017, TWC board of directors dismissed Weinstein, and he resigned from the company's board nine days later. In the wake of the scandal, TWC declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2018.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: After Weinstein's ouster was announced, several companies ended their collaborations with TWC, including Apple (October 9), Hachette (October 12), Amazon (October 13), Lexus and Ovation (October 25). The AMPAS, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) also stripped Weinstein of their memberships.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Prominent politicians condemned Weinstein's actions. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama denounced Weinstein's reported behavior on October 10, 2017. French President Emmanuel Macron initiated the revocation of Weinstein's Legion of Honour title. In the UK, Labour members of parliament requested the revocation of Weinstein's Commander of the Order of the British Empire honorary title.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Several politicians Weinstein had supported gave his donations to charities, including Democratic Senators Al Franken, Patrick Leahy, and Martin Heinrich.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Weinstein's wife Georgina Chapman announced her divorce on October 10, 2017. That month, the University at Buffalo, Weinstein's alma mater, revoked his honorary degree, and Harvard University rescinded Weinstein's 2014 W. E. B. Du Bois medal.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On New Year's Day 2018, more than three hundred Hollywood actresses and other women published an open letter in the daily newspapers "The New York Times" and "La Opinión" appealing to support the Time's Up initiative.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: Musician and actress Madonna, who worked with Weinstein on several films, said in an interview with "The New York Times Magazine", "Harvey crossed lines and boundaries and was incredibly sexually flirtatious and forward with me when we were working together." She also said she was aware of his behavior like a lot of other women in the entertainment industry, but because he was powerful and successful, few spoke out against him.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: The October 2017 allegations against Weinstein precipitated an immediate "national reckoning" against sexual harassment and assault and systemic sexism in the United States, known as the "Weinstein effect". Compounded by other sexual harassment cases earlier in the year, the Weinstein reports and the subsequent "#MeToo" hashtag campaign, which encouraged individuals to share their suppressed stories of sexual misconduct, created a cavalcade of allegations across multiple industries that brought about the swift ousting of many men in positions of power both in the United States and, as it spread, around the world.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: On October 15, 2017, deceased actress Misty Upham's father, Charles Upham, went public with allegations that his daughter was raped by a member of Weinstein's production team at the same Golden Globes ceremony where she was honored for her work on one of Weinstein's films, and that other members of Weinstein's team had not only witnessed the rape but had cheered the rapist.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In the entertainment industry, allegations led to the ousting of actors and directors alike. Most prominently, actor Kevin Spacey, comedian Louis C.K., and filmmaker Brett Ratner had projects canceled following at least six allegations apiece. Over two hundred women accused filmmaker James Toback of sexual harassment. In journalism, allegations led to the expelling of editors, publishers, executives, and hosts. In other industries, celebrity chef John Besh and other executives in finance and public relations were removed. As of November 25, 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating twenty-eight sex crime cases involving media figures.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: "Time" magazine dubbed the "Silence Breakers" behind the #MeToo movement "Time" Person of the Year in 2017. American journalists in conversation at NPR wrote of the series of allegations feeling like a tipping point for societal treatment of sexual misconduct, distinguished from prior sexual misconduct public debates by the public trust put in the celebrity accusers, as opposed to prior cases of publicly unknown accusers. Other journalists doubted that the trend would hold.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In April 2018, "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker" were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service "for their coverage of the sexual abuse of women in Hollywood and other industries around the world".


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In 2019, the documentary "Untouchable" was released, featuring interviews from several of Weinstein's accusers, including Rosanna Arquette and Paz de la Huerta. On September 10, 2019, a nonfiction book written by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey called "She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement" was published, which follows the process of their investigation, both behind the scenes and in public. In 2022, the book was made into a film adaptation "She Said".


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: The "Me Too" campaign spread to other countries and languages over social media in Asia, Europe, Latin and North America.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In North America, Canadian comedy festival founder Gilbert Rozon resigned and over a dozen individuals accused Quebec television host and producer Éric Salvail of sexual misconduct.


title: Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases

text: In Europe, allegations against multiple British politicians created a public scandal and led to the suspension and resignations of three officials. In France, political organizations close to the Socialist Party, in particular the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (UNEF), were accused of systemic sexual harassment. The French daily newspaper "Le Monde" published in November 2017 two articles on alleged sexual harassment and predation supported by former UNEF presidents, Jean-Baptiste Prévost and Emmanuel Zemmour. In an editorial, more than eighty UNEF female members and militants came forward to accuse the Union of "sexual violence".


title: Sarah Rafferty

text: Sarah Gray Rafferty (born December 6, 1972) is an American actress, widely known for her role as Donna Paulsen on the USA Network legal drama "Suits".


title: Sarah Rafferty

text: Rafferty grew up as the youngest of four daughters in the Riverside neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut. She credits her mother, Mary Lee Rafferty, the Chairwoman of the English Department at Convent of the Sacred Heart school, and her father, Michael Griffin Rafferty Jr., who enjoys two successful careers in finance and oil painting, for cultivating her passion for the arts. Her sisters are Maura, Ann, and Constance.


title: Sarah Rafferty

text: Rafferty studied at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1989. She majored in English and Theatre at Hamilton College, studied theatre abroad in the United Kingdom and at the University of Oxford during her junior year, and, after graduating magna cum laude from Hamilton in 1993, went on to study at the Yale School of Drama, receiving a Master of Fine Arts.


title: Sarah Rafferty

text: Rafferty's husband is Aleksanteri Olli-Pekka Seppälä, an American of Finnish descent, who is an equity research analyst in the asset management unit of Lazard Frères & Company. They married on June 23, 2001, at the Roman Catholic church of St. Mary in Greenwich, Connecticut, and have two daughters, Oona Gray and Iris Friday.


title: Sarah Rafferty

text: She and her "Suits" co-star Gabriel Macht have been friends since 1993, when they met at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.


title: Sarah Rafferty

text: Rafferty was one of the guests at Meghan Markle’s wedding to Prince Harry at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018.


title: John Astin

text: John Allen Astin (born March 30, 1930) is an American actor and director who has appeared in numerous stage, television and film roles. He is best known for starring in "The Addams Family" (1964–1966), as patriarch Gomez Addams, reprising the role in the television film "Halloween with the New Addams Family" (1977) and the animated series "The Addams Family" (1992–1993).


title: John Astin

text: Astin starred in the cult classic TV film "Evil Roy Slade" (1972). Other notable film roles include "West Side Story" (1961), "That Touch of Mink" (1962), "Move Over, Darling" (1963), "Freaky Friday" (1976), "National Lampoon's European Vacation" (1985), "Teen Wolf Too" (1987) and "The Frighteners" (1996). Astin was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for his directorial debut, the comedic short "Prelude" (1968).


title: John Astin

text: He has been married three times. His second wife was actress Patty Duke, and Astin is the adoptive father of Duke's son, actor Sean Astin.


title: John Astin

text: Astin was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Margaret Linnie (née Mackenzie) and Dr. Allen Varley Astin, who was the director of the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology). At that time, Astin and his family resided on Battery Lane in Bethesda, Maryland. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1952, after transferring from Washington & Jefferson College. He studied mathematics at Washington & Jefferson and then drama at Johns Hopkins; he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at Johns Hopkins.


title: John Astin

text: Astin started in theater, making his first Broadway appearance as an understudy in "Major Barbara", and also did voice-over work for commercials. His first big break in film came with a small role in "West Side Story" (1961).


title: John Astin

text: During this period, his talent for also playing comedy was spotted by actor Tony Randall, leading to guest starring roles on the sitcom "Dennis the Menace", starring Jay North; "The Donna Reed Show"; and "Harrigan and Son", starring Pat O'Brien, the first carried on CBS and the latter two carried on ABC. In 1961, Astin appeared in the final episode of the ABC police drama "The Asphalt Jungle".


title: John Astin

text: During the 1962–63 television season, Astin had his first lead in a television series, the ABC sitcom "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster", co-starring with Marty Ingels. Astin played Harry Dickens to Ingels's Arch Fenster, as two trouble-prone carpenters. The series combined witty dialogue with moments of slapstick comedy. "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" received critical raves, but was against two high-rated shows, "Sing Along with Mitch" on NBC and "Route 66" on CBS. By the time "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" gained a following and started winning its time slot, ABC had already canceled the show. 32 episodes were produced.


title: John Astin

text: Astin is perhaps best known for "The Addams Family", a popular sitcom that ran on ABC from 1964 to 1966, based on cartoons created by Charles Addams. Astin starred as Gomez Addams, the head of the macabre family. He later reprised the role of Gomez in the 1977 made-for-television film "Halloween with the New Addams Family" and voiced the role of Gomez in the animated series "The Addams Family" from 1992 to 1993. In the Canadian-American television series "The New Addams Family", which ran from 1998 to 1999, Astin appeared as Grandpapa Addams, with the role of Gomez played by Glenn Taranto.


title: John Astin

text: Astin joined the retooled "The Pruitts of Southampton" (re-titled "The Phyllis Diller Show") for the second half of the 1966–67 season, playing Diller's brother-in-law, Angus Pruitt. He also played the Riddler in the second season of "Batman" (Frank Gorshin returned for the third and final season.) He played submarine commander Matthew Sherman on the 1970s television series "Operation Petticoat". He also made several appearances in the first two seasons of the popular mystery series "Murder, She Wrote", as scheming real estate developer (and finally Sheriff) Harry Pierce, who ends up as the murderer in his last episode. He had a recurring role on the sitcom "Night Court" as Buddy, eccentric former mental patient and the father of lead character Harry Stone. Astin played the regular role of Ed LaSalle on the short-lived Mary Tyler Moore sitcom "Mary" during the 1985–86 television season. He also guest starred on numerous television series, including appearances on "Duckman", "Homeboys in Outer Space", Jack Palance's ABC circus drama "The Greatest Show on Earth", and a 1967 episode of "Gunsmoke" as Festus Haggen's cousin Henry.


title: John Astin

text: Astin received an Academy Award nomination for "Prelude", a short film that he wrote, produced, and directed. He was nominated for an Ace Award for his work on "Tales from the Crypt", and received an Emmy Award nomination for the cartoon voice of Gomez on ABC-TV's "The Addams Family". He also voiced the character Bull Gator on the animated series "Taz-Mania". Astin served for four years on the board of directors of the Writers Guild of America, and has been active in community affairs in Los Angeles and Santa Monica.


title: John Astin

text: He has continued to work in acting, appearing in a string of "Killer Tomatoes" films as Professor Gangreen and as Professor Wickwire in "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.". In 1996 he featured as The Judge, the ghost of an Old West gunslinger, in Peter Jackson's "The Frighteners". He also has toured the one-man play "", written by Paul Day Clemens and Ron Magid. In a December 2007 "Baltimore Examiner" interview, Astin said of his acting experience:


title: John Astin

text: Astin is a member of the board of directors of the Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts in Columbia, Maryland.


title: John Astin

text: Astin is director of the Theater Arts and Studies Department and Homewood Professor of the Arts at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater, which offers an undergraduate minor program. Commenting on his dual career, he said in 2007, "I don't know one major university that has a known actor teaching every day." Astin noted that he is one of only a handful to earn a drama degree from Hopkins. He has taught at Hopkins since 2001. Devika Bhise has been working with the university to create "The Astin Fund", an endowed chair that would allow theater to be a major at Johns Hopkins University for undergraduates.


title: John Astin

text: Astin has five sons; three (David, Allen and Tom) with his first wife, Suzanne Hahn; two with his second wife, actress Patty Duke – one adopted (Sean, Patty's son from an earlier relationship, whom Astin adopted during their marriage) and one biological (Mackenzie).


title: John Astin

text: Astin practices Nichiren Buddhism as a member of the worldwide Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International.


title: Kerry Washington

text: Kerry Marisa Washington (born January 31, 1977) is an American actress. She gained wide public recognition for starring as crisis management expert Olivia Pope in the ABC drama series "Scandal" (2012–2018). For her role, she was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and once for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. Her portrayal of Anita Hill in the HBO television political thriller film "Confirmation" (2016), and her role as Mia Warren in the Hulu miniseries "Little Fires Everywhere" (2020), both earned nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.


title: Kerry Washington

text: In film, Washington is known for her roles as Della Bea Robinson in "Ray" (2004), as Kay in "The Last King of Scotland" (2006), as Alicia Masters in the live-action "Fantastic Four" films of 2005 and , and as Broomhilda von Shaft in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" (2012). She has also starred in the independent films "Our Song" (2000), "The Dead Girl" (2006), "Mother and Child" (2009), "Night Catches Us" (2010), and "American Son" (2019).


title: Kerry Washington

text: "Time" magazine included Washington in its "Time" 100 list of most influential people in 2014. In 2018, "Forbes" named her the eighth highest-paid television actress. Washington has won a Primetime Emmy Award and five NAACP Image Awards, including The President's Award.


title: Kerry Washington

text: Washington was born in the Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Valerie, a professor and educational consultant, and Earl Washington, a real estate broker. Her father's family is of African American origin, having moved from South Carolina to Brooklyn. Her mother's family is from Manhattan, and Washington has said that her mother is from a "mixed-race background and from Jamaica, so she is partly English and Scottish and Native American, but also descended from enslaved Africans in the Caribbean." Through her mother, she is a cousin of former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.


title: Kerry Washington

text: Washington performed with the TADA! Youth Theater teen group and attended the Spence School in Manhattan from her pre-teen years until graduating from high school in 1994. At the age of 13, she was taken to watch Nelson Mandela speak at Yankee Stadium upon his release from prison. She attended George Washington University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1998 with a double major in anthropology and sociology. She also studied at Michael Howard Studios in New York City.


title: Kerry Washington

text: In April 2016, Washington confirmed that, in the 1990s in New York, she learned to dance from Jennifer Lopez. During her appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", she told host Jimmy Fallon: "I've been taking dance for a long time, since I was a little girl. I had this very inspiring teacher named Larry Maldonado, for anybody from my neighborhood in the Bronx, he was our role model. ... And he had an awesome substitute teacher named Jennifer, who would sometimes step in and teach. But, then she left to move to Los Angeles and be on the TV show "In Living Color". So, yes, I learned to dance from JLo!"


title: Kerry Washington

text: Washington got her Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card as a requirement for a commercial that she starred in. Washington made her screen debut in the ABC telefilm "Magical Make-Over" (1994). She was in the cast of the 1996 PBS sketch comedy-style educational series "Standard Deviants", and she appeared in the short "3D" and the feature film "Our Song" in 2000. She went on to appear in several movies, including "Save the Last Dance" (2001) and "The Human Stain" (2003). In 2002 she played Chris Rock's love interest in the spy thriller "Bad Company", a film that represented a turning point for her, in that it was the first time in her career that she had made enough money annually to qualify for health insurance under SAG.


title: Kerry Washington

text: In 2004, she played the female lead in Spike Lee's "She Hate Me", and she received strong reviews for her performance. After 2004, she held parts in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (2005), "Little Man" (2006), "I Think I Love My Wife" (2007), and as a wife of 1970s Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the UK historical drama "The Last King of Scotland" (2006). Washington has also appeared in the recurring role of Chelina Hall on the ABC television series "Boston Legal", and in several episodes of the A&E cable-TV series "100 Centre Street". In 2007, she co-directed and appeared in the music video for hip-hop artist Common's song, "I Want You", the fourth single from his album "Finding Forever"


title: Kerry Washington

text: and became a spokesperson for L'Oréal, appearing in commercials and ads alongside fellow actresses, Scarlett Johansson and Eva Longoria, Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh, Dian Sastrowardoyo, Aishwarya Rai, Maya Karin and model Doutzen Kroes.


title: Kerry Washington

text: Washington narrated the critically acclaimed documentary about the New Orleans-based teenage TBC Brass Band, "From the Mouthpiece on Back". She also appears in Maxwell's "Bad Habits" video. In 2009, Washington performed in "The People Speak", a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".


title: Kerry Washington

text: In 2010, Washington made her Broadway debut in the original production of David Mamet's play "Race", alongside James Spader (with whom she worked on "Boston Legal"), David Alan Grier, and Richard Thomas. She also appeared as a part of the ensemble in Tyler Perry's 2010 drama film "For Colored Girls".


title: Kerry Washington

text: She starred in Quentin Tarantino's film "Django Unchained" (2012), which received widespread critical acclaim. She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012 along with 175 other individuals.


title: Kerry Washington

text: From April 2012 to April 2018, Washington starred in the ABC drama series "Scandal", created by Shonda Rhimes, as Olivia Pope, a crisis manager who runs her own crisis management firm called Olivia Pope & Associates in Washington, D.C. In this position, she worked for high-profile figures, most notably the President of the United States, who was also her on-off lover. The show was a commercial and critical success, and was called one of the most talked about drama series on Facebook and Twitter. Washington's performance earned positive reviews, and in 2013, she won the award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series at the 44th NAACP Image Awards and was also presented with the NAACP President's Award. The same year, she was named "Favorite actress" and "Scandal" "Favorite Drama" of the year at "TV Guide"'s Magazine Fan Favorite Awards and was also crowned 2013's "TV Star of the Year" by the editors of the magazine.


title: Kerry Washington

text: For her work in the second season of "Scandal", Washington was nominated for an Emmy at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards and 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, becoming the first African-American woman to be nominated in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 18 years. She was also nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series as well as a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Drama Series. "The Boston Globe" ranked "Scandal" tenth place of its list of "Top 10 political TV shows" in 2015.


title: Kerry Washington

text: In addition to Washington's acting, her costumes as Olivia Pope attracted positive attention, prompting "Vanity Fair" to name the character one of "The Top Ten Best-Dressed TV Characters" in 2013. According to the show's costume designer, Lyn Paolo, the success of Olivia Pope's wardrobe was based on "this idea of having [her character] wear such soft, feminine colors in a man's world". In 2014, Washington and Paolo won the Influencer Award at the 2014 Ace Fashion Awards for Olivia Pope's stylish clothes on the show.


title: Kerry Washington

text: In 2013, Washington ranked No. 2 in "People" magazine's 100 Most Beautiful people and was named Woman of the Year by "Glamour" magazine. The same year, she ranked No. 20 on "Forbes" magazine's annual list of the highest-paid actors in television and was announced as the new face of Neutrogena skin care. Washington hosted "Saturday Night Live" on November 2, 2013, where she impersonated Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey in a cold opening sketch that satirized criticism of "Saturday Night Live" for not having had any black female cast members for many years.