US attorney general tried to block Gerry Adams fundraising over IRA weapons fears, unearthed records reveal
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The US attorney general tried to block Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams from fundraising in the country in 1995 over a belief the IRA was still trying to source weapons, newly released records show. Janet Reno, the attorney general at the time, had previously opposed then-US president Bill Clinton's decision to grant visas for Mr Adams and former IRA chief Joe Cahill in 1994 - months after the IRA declared a ceasefire.
Mr Adams was president of Sinn Fein, which was regarded as the political wing of the IRA paramilitary group, between 1983 and 2018, but has always denied being a member of the IRA. Mr Clinton overruled Ms Reno by giving him a three-month visa, which included permission to raise funds for the party - a move that provoked anger from then-UK prime minister John Major.
The US attorney general's continuing opposition is revealed by the annual release of documents from the National Archives in Dublin. In a February 1995 letter to Mr Clinton's national security advisor Tony Lake, she expressed frustration "by the latest effort" to modify restrictions that stopped Mr Adams raising money from Irish American donors, having looked at the matter "barely six weeks" earlier.
"No evidence has been brought to my attention (since) that suggests progress has been made towards the disarmament and demobilisation of the IRA," she told Mr Lake. Northern Irish police once questioned man because he had showered, declassified documents show.
