John Lipcourt scandal (Napoleon's World)

The John Lipcourt scandal, also known as the Gas-for-Guns scandal, was a major political scandal that emerged in 1991 and continued into the Presidential election year of 1992, negatively affecting Robert Redford's reelection campaign and damaging the positive image the National Party had worked hard to foster during its previous ten years in the White House. The scandal shed light on a "gas-for-guns" deal that members of the US State Department had approved of when it was suggested by Pentagon officials, and involved arming Middle Eastern regimes in the wake of the Persian Gulf War to better fight against popular protests and insurrection following the Arab Coalition's humiliating defeat in return for generously marked-down rates on oil imports and drilling rights in offshore territories.

The scandal resulted in a much-publicized trial in the fall of 1991, brought Robert Redford's approval rating as low as 41%, and, along with Redford's already-infamous "golf incident" in 1989 and the pains of a severe recession, is accredited with dooming Redford's reelection bid in 1992. The scandal and subsequent investigation also helped usher in the "era of cynicism" that permeated government in the 1990's, and the phrase "How much did the President know, and when did he know it?" became a part of the popular lexicon.