"Being able to confirm Barnes’s account, the Times said, is difficult “after so much time”.

“Barnes has no diaries or memos to corroborate his account"

"Barnes – a Democrat who served as lieutenant governor of Texas and was vice-chair of John Kerry’s 2004 election campaign"

My opinion this is just a ex-post-facto smear campaign by someone with political motive.

If I'm wrong and Barnes is telling the truth and has evidence, then Barnes himself should be prosecuted for aiding and abetting treason.

A minor dirty trick in the scheme of political dirty tricks. There are far worst ones and committed by both sides. No doubt about it.

This is an actually a very old accusation, reported and investigated a couple of dozen times especially in the aftermath of the 1980 election and again in 1991.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_th...

It certainly seems like the sort of thing the Iran Contra Gang might have done, but there's no hard evidence that they actually tried. In particular, Ayatollah Khomeini had clearly already thought of it on his own and was able to act on it likewise, so there would have been no need for Reagan or his proxies to get their hands dirty.