fb-pixelAl Sharpton says report of FBI cooperation not new - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

Al Sharpton says report of FBI cooperation not new

The Rev. Al Sharpton said he never considered himself a confidential informant in the 1980s investigation.Seth Wenig/Associated Press

NEW YORK — The Rev. Al Sharpton admitted on Tuesday that he helped the FBI investigate New York Mafia figures in the 1980s, even making secret recordings that appeared to help bring down a mob boss.

But at a news conference, Sharpton insisted he never considered himself a confidential informant, despite a report identifying him as the ‘‘CI-7’’ referenced in recently released court records.

‘‘I was never told I was an informant with a number,’’ Sharpton told reporters at his Harlem headquarters in response to the report posted on The Smoking Gun website. ‘‘In my own mind, I was not an informant. I was cooperating with an investigation.’’

Advertisement



The report’s timing became a distraction for Sharpton a day before he was to host President Obama as the keynote speaker at the annual convention of his civil rights group, the National Action Network. The MSNBC host complained that he was unfairly portrayed as a turncoat mob associate instead of a victim in front-page tabloid stories featuring headlines like ‘‘REV RAT’’ and 30-year-old photos of him when he was overweight and wore his hair in a bouffant.

For about two years, the FBI enlisted Sharpton to record conversations with mob figures using a bug hidden in a briefcase, he said. He added: ‘‘I made the right decision. . . . The only thing I’m embarrassed by are those old fat pictures.’’

Associated Press