Bill de Blasio says he tried — privately — to pressure parade organizers to cut ties with FALN terrorist

Brett T. | 9:30 PM on June 05, 2017

As Twitchy reported, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio recently insisted he was going to march in the city’s Puerto Rican Day parade despite it honoring FALN mastermind Oscar López Rivera, whose sentence was commuted by former President Barack Obama during his last days in office.

That earned the president a thank you from de Blasio, who clearly didn’t hold a grudge over that fatal bombing in his city decades before.

Thank you @POTUS for freeing #OscarLopezRivera. Congratulations to all who fought for this day, including Speaker @MMViverito.

— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) January 18, 2017

At a press conference on Monday, however, de Blasio claimed he’d just been taking a diplomatic approach, keeping quiet in public while privately pressuring parade organizers to cut ties with López Rivera.

De Blasio Says He Privately Threatened To Sit Out Puerto Rican Day Parade Over López Rivera Involvement https://t.co/FC4NKKfKEs

— CBS New York (@CBSNewYork) June 5, 2017

https://twitter.com/ObserverNewYork/status/871831853715554304

AFTER THE FACT!
De Blasio claims he always objected to ex-terror leader as Puerto Rican parade honoree https://t.co/yJiO6m76bI via @nypmetro

— Perley J. Thibodeau (@PerleyThibodeau) June 5, 2017

“Lopez Rivera declined the honor of ‘National Freedom Hero’ last week,” the New York Daily News reported, “and now de Blasio says he’d told the parade committee that if the FALN leader remained an honoree, he wouldn’t have been part of the parade.”