Justice Department Official Who Resigned in Protest in ’80s Dies at 83

Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

Arnold I. Burns was a top Justice Department official in the 1980s when he and others resigned in protest of Attorney General Edwin Meese III’s handling of Iran contra and a number of other issues.

Burns died of cardiac arrest and complications from Parkinson’s disease, the New York Times reports. He was 83.

Burns rose rapidly through the ranks of the Justice Department under President Reagan.

But he and others resigned after allegations also surfaced that Meese was under investigation for project spending that benefited a friend and families, The Times wrote.

Under Meese, Burns said, the Justice Department had become “a world of Alice in Wonderland – a world of illusion and allusion: a world in which up was down and down was up, in was out, out was in, happy was sad and sad was happy.”

Leave a Reply