Pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1992, Abrams was a pivotal figure in the foreign-policy scandal that shook the Reagan administration, lying to Congress about his knowledge of the plot to covertly sell weapons to the Khomeini government and use the proceeds to illegally fund the right-wing Contras rebel group in Nicaragua. As assistant secretary of State, he testified that the United States was not involved in such a plot, despite being well aware of architect Oliver North’s efforts to resupply the brutal paramilitaries; in 1991 he was convicted of two counts of withholding evidence. (For observers new to the scandal that consider it a product of a bygone era, the attorney general who cheer-led the pardoning of Abrams and four others involved in the affair is William Barr, who holds the same position today.)