In late 1986, the White House was on the cusp of a huge scandal involving Iran-Contra, a complicated and illegal program to sell arms to Iran and route the proceeds to the Contras, a guerrilla organization dedicated to the overthrow of Nicaragua’s leftist, Sandinista regime. To try to destroy incriminating evidence, National Security Advisor John Poindexter and his assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North shredded the paper trail and methodically set out to delete all of their emails related to the program.  When done, they felt confident that they had erased anything that could have tied them and the White House to the illegal program. But that was a false confidence.

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