LONDON, United Kingdom – Donald Trump has raised eyebrows throughout his campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination with comments he has made in the past constantly coming back to haunt him. However, across the pond in the UK it is his actions, in meeting the former boss of the Irish terrorists group the IRA, that are causing concerns.
For decades the IRA's spokesman, Gerry Adams, had been banned from the US because of his involvement in terrorism. But all that changed under Bill Clinton, when he was granted a 48-hour visa to visit the country. It was granted despite bitter complaints from officials in the British Foreign Office, and the US State Department. Both sides felt the 'Special Relationship' was put at risk by the presence of Adams on American soil.
Mr Adams used a second trip the following year to attend a $200 a head fund-raising dinner with the glitterati of New York society. At the time AP said: “Barred from the United States until last year, Adams drew celebrities and supporters to a posh Manhattan hotel for an unprecedented fund-raiser Wednesday.
"Bianca Jagger, Tom Hayden, moviemaker Michael Moore and ex-mayor David Dinkins were among those paying $200 a plate to rub shoulders with Adams as Irish nationalist fund raising came out of the closet."
As photos from the time show, Donald Trump was also at the fund-raiser, but he was not joined by any other Republican Presidential hopefuls. The meeting gave Trump the opportunity to shake the hand of a man who, according to the Irish Prime Minister, was on the IRA Army Council at the time it ordered the killing of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984.
Recommended
Thatcher was blown up at Conservative Party Conference in Brighton that year, and only survived because she was not in her bed when the bomb went off 3am. Five Conservatives were killed in the attack and a further 31 serious injured.
Perhaps Trump discussed the allegations of former Irish Detective Superintendent PJ Browne, who said Adams was "the leader of the psychotic IRA unit in Belfast in the early 1970s". Allegations, which if proved, would make Adams responsible for multiple sadistic murders. We may never know the truth.
I have some sympathy for Trump though, he must get invited to all sorts of dinners for all sorts of causes every year. It was not for him as a businessman to vet which foreign groups should be raising money in the USA, that is the job of the President. And President Clinton knew full well what the money Adams was raising would be used for, and he allowed it anyway. He did so because Democrat America has always supported and financed terrorism against the UK.
As bombs took lives in London, Birmingham and Belfast those planting them could always rely on Democrat dollars to pay for more semtex. With the results of their carnage secretly cheered on by the more sinister members of the Kennedy clan. It was a cosy relationship that allowed America's closest friends to be blown up as they went about their everyday business.
After Clinton was gone President Bush banned the Real IRA from fund-rasing within four weeks of entering the White House. He also threatened to ban the IRA as well, but by this time it had largely given up violence. This gave him moral authority in Britain after the September 11th attacks that Clinton would never have garnered.
Trump should now distance himself from Gerry Adams and the IRA, but America should remember that it was the Democrats that allowed all this to happen. They line up to do down Britain, and some of them even paid for attacks against it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member