MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton is no stranger to controversy as the revelation of the so-called “pay to play” scheme extends a long shadow of scandals that have followed him.
Last week, the MSNBC vice president admitted he “didn’t know.” Kamala Harris‘The presidential campaign paid $500,000 to Sharpton’s National Action Network nonprofit before a friendly Oct. 20 interview with the Democratic nominee just weeks before the election.
After Harris lost to President-elect Donald Trump, FEC Filings Harris disclosed that the campaign made two $250,000 donations to Sharpton’s nonprofit in September and October. However, the MSNBC weekend host did not disclose any apparent conflict of interest to viewers before or after the interview. He did not disclose the donations to his bosses at the network, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which broke the story.
MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton has a history of scandals and controversy behind the recent “play for play” allegations. (Brian Stukes/Getty Images; Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty Images; Screenshot/MSNBC)
Sharpton’s political stripes are no secret as an outspoken supporter of Harris and the Democratic Party, even speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But the six-figure deal between his group and the Harris campaign “bridges too much” between his MSNBC colleagues, according to a network insider.
While it’s unclear whether Sharpton will face any consequences for the apparent conflict of interest, it points to the latest scandal to confront an outspoken activist. These are some of the controversies he has covered over the decades.
Tax problems
Sharpton has earned a reputation for playing fast and loose when it comes to his taxes. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to failing to file a 1986 tax return in exchange for dropping two felony charges.
In 2008, Sharpton was found to owe nearly $1.5 million in back taxes.
The New York Times Explained some of his other financial difficulties over the years. In 1990, he was acquitted of felony charges after being accused of stealing $250,000 from a youth group. Three years later, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge after failing to file a state income tax return. One of his profitable businesses, Raw Talent, also went bust due to non-payment of taxes for several years.
“Records reviewed by The New York Times show more than $4.5 million in current state and federal tax liens,” the Times reported in 2014.
MSNBC was the Harris campaign. Al offered $500K to Sharpton’s group ahead of a friendly interview
Promoting the Tawana Brali rape scam
Despite her prominent role on MSNBC, Sharpton is perhaps best known for rallying behind notorious rape fraudster Tawana Brawley.
Brawley, a 15-year-old black girl, was accused of being kidnapped and raped by a white mob in 1987 after she disappeared from her New York home for four days. Feces and racial slurs were written all over her body.
Sharpton became one of her closest advisers and her most vocal defender, raising racial tensions across the country in the process. A grand jury ultimately found her claims false.
Sharpton himself was sued for defamation by one of Brawley’s accusers, who was awarded $65,000 in damages. Sharpton ended up footing the bill years later after his backers claimed he didn’t have the money.
Rev. Al Sharpton was a big promoter of the Tawana Brawley rape hoax. (John Pedine/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
To this day, Sharpton has no regrets about defending Brawley.
“I have no evidence that I was misled,” Sharpton said said in a January 2023 interview. “It was my position that there was an allegation from this young lady, that it was really questionable behavior that she was alleging.”
History of Anti-Semitism
The prominent activist has a disturbing record of anti-Semitism over the years.
In 1991, Sharpton defended New York City College professor Leonard Jeffries, who had sparked outrage with his speech targeting “rich Jews” who financed the slave trade and controlled Hollywood, saying they had “put together a system of destruction for black people”. He responded to the controversy by saying, “If the Jews want to have it, pin their yarmulkes back and tell them to come to my house.”
Kamala Harris activists receive large campaign donations for their groups ahead of sit-downs
That same year, a Jewish man fatally involved a 7-year-old black boy in a horrific crash with his car after Sharpton incited a deadly anti-Semitic mob in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
At the boy’s funeral, Sharpton said “the world tells us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident. It was an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights … how Oppenheimer talks about South Africa sending diamonds directly to Tel Aviv and dealing with the diamond dealers in Crown Heights. ” Their use of “diamond merchants” was referring to Jewish jewelry. He shouted “Kill the Jews!” They held protests with slogans like and “No justice, no peace!”
The riots led to the fatal stabbing of rabbinical scholar Yankel Rosenbaum by a black teenager.
The Rev. took aim at the Jewish community in Crown Heights after a black child was fatally struck by a Jewish motorist. (Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Click here for latest media and culture news
The incident was investigated and no charges were filed. But after the Jewish man moved to Israel, Sharpton rushed to the Jewish state to hunt him down. According to the New York Daily News, a woman recognized Sharpton at the airport and told him to “go to hell,” to which he replied, “I’m already in hell. I’m in Israel.”
In 1995, Sharpton referred to a Jewish store owner in Harlem as a “white interloper” after the store owner raised the store owner’s own rent after collecting the rent of its black subdivision from the building’s owner, a Black Pentecostal church. Sharpton and his National Action Network organized weeks of protests that led to a shooting that killed seven people and burned a Jewish store owner’s business to the ground.
Click here to get the Fox News app
