Al Sharpton, The Radical on NBC, the last place Brian Williams worked telling lies to his millions of viewers have another problem, a rather well connected, liar and cheat, Al Sharpton. The best friend forever of Barack Obama, the radical president, Al Sharpton has a lot of explaining to do but not to worry. Al Sharpton only recalls the sweet spots of his past which nobody else can find. Al Sharpton of NBC is well connect but years ago he was just another black street hustler, dabbling around in money laundering and drugs and other street money making ideas. NBC must be really proud that Big Al Sharpton has gone straight and doesn't rattle his tin can for change from viewers. The disgrace of NBC Al Sharpton and his BFF Barack Obama, Bill De Blasio, Jesse Jackson, Eric Holder, Bill and Hillary Clinton and many others is a lot worse than Brian Williams. Nobody thinks Brian was a money laundering fool or a drug dealer, let alone a FBI street gangster. Brian just told stories while Big Al set up deals, recorded mafia members to kind of stay out of jail.
FEBRUARY
11--With its swift and severe punishment of Brian Williams, NBCUniversal
declared yesterday that it will not stand for on-air talent lying to viewers.
Now that the media conglomerate has delineated that bright
line, when does the Rev. Al Sharpton’ssuspension without pay begin?
In the wake of last year’s lengthy TSG
report about
Sharpton’s secret work as a paid FBI Mafia informant, the MSNBC host sought to
blunt the story’s disclosures with a series of lies told at a pair of press
conferences, on his nightly “Politics Nation” program, and in a report on
Williams’s own NBC Nightly News (which was rebroadcast on NBC's Today show).
Sharpton, 60, cast himself as a victim who first ran into
the FBI’s warm embrace when a scary gangster purportedly threatened his life.
He was “an American citizen with every right to call law enforcement” for
protection, Sharpton told his MSNBC
audience. His sole motivation was to “try to protect myself and
others.”
He needed the FBI’s help, Sharpton claimed, because his
relentless advocacy on behalf of African-American concert promoters had angered
wiseguys with hooks in the music business. “I did the right thing working with
the authorities,” Sharpton assured viewers. As for being branded an informant,
that was a label for others to worry about. “I didn’t consider myself, quote,
an informant. Wasn’t told I was that,” said Sharpton.
These claims, broadcast by NBCUniversal, were demonstrably
false.
Sharpton was, again, lying about when, how, and why he
became a government informant. This historical rewrite was intended to cast his cooperation in the most
favorable--even heroic--light possible. The true story, however, was grimier
and far less commendable.
Sharpton was once an organized crime associate who got
caught up in an FBI sting and immediately agreed to join Team America to stay
out of prison. The street-smart preacher’s decision to become an informant was
borne out of fear and a desire for self preservation, a calculus not unique
when someone is cornered by men with badges.
Now, if NBCUniversal cared to examine the televised claims
Sharpton has made about his work as an informant, the company’s newly formed
internal affairs division could review hundreds of pages of FBI documents
chronicling Sharpton’s work as “CI-7,” short for confidential informant #7, and
they could track down members of the FBI-NYPD organized crime task force for
which Sharpton surreptitiously recorded his meetings with gangsters.
And company brass would certainly want to review the first
story to expose Sharpton as a snitch, a January 1998 Newsday piece authored by
a Murderers Row of reporters: Bob Drury, Robert Kessler, Mike McAlary, and
Richard Esposito. If that last guy’s name rings a bell, well, it is probably
because Esposito--now senior executive producer of NBC's investigative unit--is
heading the network’s review of Williams’s Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina
claims.
Could there be a better man to head the Sharpton Task
Force? Luckily, Esposito’s memories of Sharpton’s FBI activities remain clear,
as evidenced by a article (“Rev. Al Sharpton and Me”) he wrote
for the NBC News web site the day after TSG published its Sharpton story last April.
As detailed by TSG and Esposito (seen at right) and his
Newsday colleaugues, Sharpton agreed to become an informant after he was
secretly videotaped discussing a possible cocaine deal with an undercover FBI
agent.
Sharpton was “flipped” on a Thursday afternoon in June
1983 when he showed up at a Manhattan apartment expecting to meet with a former
South American druglord seeking to launder money through boxing promotions
(like those handled by Sharpton pal Don King). The role of "druglord"
was played by undercover FBI Agent Victor Quintana.
After Sharpton entered the apartment, FBI Agents Joseph
Spinelli and Kenneth Mikionis emerged from the bedroom. They then played
Sharpton a videotape of a prior meeting with Quintana during which cocaine was
a topic of conversation. While the agents were unsure whether Sharpton had said
enough to warrant a criminal prosecution, the civil rights activist had no
doubt he was in trouble. Sharpton agreed on the spot to begin working as an
informant.
The following day, at Spinelli’s direction, Sharpton
recorded the first of several conversations with King, a major FBI target. Sharpton, of course, has repeatedly
lied when asked whether he made such consensual recordings for his FBI
handlers.
Over the next several years, Sharpton worked with FBI
agents and NYPD detectives as they put together criminal cases against leaders
of the Genovese organized crime family. For example, he used a briefcase
outfitted with a hidden recording device to tape ten meetings with a Gambino
crime family figure named Joseph Buonanno.
About nine months into his work as an informant, Sharpton
was purportedly threatened by Salvatore Pisello, a mob associate affiliated
with MCA Records in Los Angeles. Pisello, Sharpton claimed in his
autobiography, was angry that the activist was agitating to have
African-American promoters included in the “Victory Tour” starring Michael
Jackson and his brothers. Presumably, such involvement by these promoters would
have cut into Pisello’s piece of the lucrative tour.
The reported threat, however, amounted to nothing but
talk. Sharpton, however, has cast the incident--for which he is the sole
witness--as the motivation for him approaching FBI agents for some federal
succor.
While Sharpton’s sleight of hand when it comes to matters
temporal and factual is well established, he chose to boldly use the airwaves
of NBCUniversal--his employer--to broadcast lies about his tawdry past.
Unlike Williams, however, viewers should not expect an
apology--even a mangled one at that--from Sharpton.
