The Congress passed a law forbidding various parts of the government not including the president's staff from prosecuting it, since they can't do that constitutionally. As I remember, an amendment to do the latter was voted down, further delineating exactly what the Congress was doing.
And I guess you weren't reading the same sources I was, and as I looked up the the Dear Comandante letter from 1984 I'm reminded of at least one overt, passed by the Congress in 1988 (!) aid bill to help the Contras, point your favorite search engine at contra aid bill. Which makes it crystal clear the simple picture you are painting is far too simple to be true.
"REAGAN SIGNS FOREIGN AID BILL, PRAISING CONTRA AID
AP , Associated Press
Aug. 9, 1985 1:37 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Reagan, hailing new funding for Contra rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government, has signed a $25.4 billion foreign aid bill.
''I am particularly pleased that the Congress approved the renewal of aid to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters,'' Reagan said Thursday before he signed the measure...."
Gaaah, bad memories. Anyone who thinks our foreign policy is messed up today should really review post-Vietnam War Cold War policy, where way too much of the nation up to and including Congressmen were openly on the other side. And then there's Carter's 1977 "inordinate fear of communism", and, oh, hugging and kissing Brezhnev on the signing of the SALT treaty, following in just 6 months by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Which we're still paying the price for (as well as Iran, but that wasn't so Cold War specific).
And if you wonder why today's domestic politics are so bad, it was noted when the Sandinistas theoretically fell in a popular vote in 1990 those people ran out of Socialist Worker's Paradises to support, leaving them pretty much with the US as their only target.
And I guess you weren't reading the same sources I was, and as I looked up the the Dear Comandante letter from 1984 I'm reminded of at least one overt, passed by the Congress in 1988 (!) aid bill to help the Contras, point your favorite search engine at contra aid bill. Which makes it crystal clear the simple picture you are painting is far too simple to be true.
Ah, and how about this, from the AP's archive (http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1985/Reagan-Signs-Foreign-Aid-B...):
"REAGAN SIGNS FOREIGN AID BILL, PRAISING CONTRA AID
AP , Associated Press
Aug. 9, 1985 1:37 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Reagan, hailing new funding for Contra rebels fighting the Nicaraguan government, has signed a $25.4 billion foreign aid bill.
''I am particularly pleased that the Congress approved the renewal of aid to the Nicaraguan freedom fighters,'' Reagan said Thursday before he signed the measure...."
Gaaah, bad memories. Anyone who thinks our foreign policy is messed up today should really review post-Vietnam War Cold War policy, where way too much of the nation up to and including Congressmen were openly on the other side. And then there's Carter's 1977 "inordinate fear of communism", and, oh, hugging and kissing Brezhnev on the signing of the SALT treaty, following in just 6 months by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Which we're still paying the price for (as well as Iran, but that wasn't so Cold War specific).
And if you wonder why today's domestic politics are so bad, it was noted when the Sandinistas theoretically fell in a popular vote in 1990 those people ran out of Socialist Worker's Paradises to support, leaving them pretty much with the US as their only target.