Rev. Al Sharpton Denies Report That He Was Paid To Be An FBI Informant

According to a lengthy report published by The Smoking Gun (TSG), Rev. Al Sharpton was once an informant, CI-7, for an FBI/NYPD joint task force that sought information about Mafia crime families.

 

His activities, the story says, went on for four years during the mid-1980s. While Rev. Al doesn’t deny that he worked with authorities, he says the lengths to which he worked, as described by The Smoking Gun, are “crazy.”

“If I provided all the information they claimed I provided, I should be given a ticker-tape parade,” Rev. Sharpton told The New York Post.

The site says it got its information from a variety of affidavits, FBI documents, and even interviews with the Genovese family. In meetings where he met with crime family members, the report says, there was talk of a “wide range of mob business” all captured by a wire secreted into the meetings. “Sharpton’s briefcase–a specially customized Hartmann model–recorded his every word,” TSG says. Information Sharpton collected is alleged to have been used for further bugs and wire tapping to collect evidence against members of the mob.

Sharpton, who spoke with TSG about the allegations, says he wasn’t an informant, and accused those of making these claims of trying to undermine his civil rights activism. “In his most recent book, The Rejected Stone, which hit best seller lists following its October 2013 publication, Sharpton claimed to have once been ‘set up by the government,’ whose agents later leaked ‘false information’ that ‘could have gotten me killed,’” TSG writes.
“He denied being paid to snitch and said he never carried a briefcase with a listening device,” the Post adds.
The TSG article continues:

“In an interview Saturday, Sharpton again denied working as a confidential informant, claiming that his prior cooperation with FBI agents was limited to efforts to prompt investigations of drug dealing in minority communities, as well as the swindling of black artists in the recording industry. He also repeatedly denied being “flipped” by federal agents in the course of an undercover operation. When asked specifically about his recording of the Gambino crime family member, Sharpton was noncommittal: “I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.”

Sharpton says that he was the target of threats and did seek help with them.
These days, Rev. Sharpton is the president and CEO of the National Action Network, which is having its 2014 convention this week with guests to include media members from MSNBC, President Obama, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. TSG notes that he’s paid $241,402 annually for his work with the nonprofit. Moreover, he hosts PoliticsNation on MSNBC.

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