How Al Sharpton Rakes in Millions Not to Call Corporations 'Racist'

According to a new investigative article, Al Sharpton has spent years shaking down corporations essentially for protection money supplied to him so that he would avoid calling them "racists," or setting up boycotts, and creating uncomfortable public relations nightmares.

An extensive piece in the New York Post on Sunday traced Sharpton's practice of taking money in exchange for his silence. The MSNBC host, the Post said, has taken millions not to attack corporations for their purported racism. "Al Sharpton has enriched himself and NAN for years by threatening companies with bad publicity if they didn't come to terms with him," Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal Policy Center (NLPC) told the paper. "Put simply, Sharpton specializes in shakedowns." Only a few weeks ago, the National Legal & Policy Center published an open letter to Walmart asking the nation's largest retailer to stop funding Sharpton's National Action Network. In the letter NLPC criticized Walmart for funding Sharpton's NAN. Walmart even helped host Sharpton's 60th birthday party, all this despite the constant violence that Sharpton is responsible for. Speaking of the recent violent protests, NLPC said, "This is not the first time that violence and loss of life have followed Sharpton's agitation," NLPC noted, "such as in the 1991 Crown Heights riots and the 1995 Freddy's Fashion Mart incident. Sharpton's involvement in these and other abhorrent episodes, such as the Tawana Brawley hoax, are a matter of record. You cannot claim that you are unaware of Sharpton's past record of anti-Semitism and incitement."

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The Post piece reveals several stories of corporations that went hat and check book in hand to Sharpton hoping he'd refrain from attacking them. The most absurd incident happened recently after the Sony data hacking, an incident that brought Sony co-chair Amy Pascal to supplicate herself before the con man. Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal met with the activist preacher after leaked e-mails showed her making racially charged comments about President Obama. Pascal was under siege after a suspected North Korean cyber attack pressured the studio to cancel its release of "The Interview," which depicts the assassination of dictator Kim Jong-un. Pascal and her team were said to be "shaking in their boots" and "afraid of the Rev," The Post reported. The article also details a $500,000 payment from Plainfield Asset Management, a Greenwich, Conn.-based hedge fund company, a $100,000 payment from representatives of the AEG consortium, and a million bucks from several corporations like McDonald's, Walmart and Verizon during the Sharpton birthday party mentioned above. Then there are payments by Macy's, PepsiCo, Pfizer, General Motors, American Honda and Chrysler, among many, many others. In addition there are the many corporations that have found Sharpton spots on their boards or given him "consulting" fees all to avoid boycotts and public relations bombs. All these millions going into Sharpton's and NAN's bank account despite that Sharpton owes over a million dollars in back taxes to the IRS. More information will be coming out on Sharpton's shakedowns with a new book being published by the NLPC. The book titled Sharpton: A Demagogue's Rise, by Dr. Carl Horowitz, will be the authoritative account of Sharpton's life.