https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/201...ls-impeachment
By the end of the investigations, the secretary of defense, two national security advisers, the assistant secretary of state, and 10 others would be indicted.
And yet Iran-Contra did not bring the Reagan administration to a sudden halt (though it did take a toll on the president’s poll numbers, which plummeted from 63 percent in late October 1986 to 47 percent by December). While 11 of the 14 indictments turned into convictions — for such crimes as conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction — most slates were wiped clean either through the appeals process or through a raft of pardons issued by Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush. (Imagine how imminent Trump’s fall might seem if a raft of top officials were not only indicted but convicted.)
Bush, for his part, had been implicated in the scandal as Reagan’s vice president, having withheld (for example) subpoenaed diary entries that indicated his full knowledge of the arms-for-hostages deal. And Reagan left office with sky-high approval ratings: 63 percent approved of the job he was doing, higher than any postwar president at the time.