Al Sharpton responds to FBI informant revelations

The Rev. Al Sharpton has said that a report that he spied on New York Mafia figures for the FBI in the 1980s is old news, and he said that he never considered himself an informant.
“In my own mind I was not an informant,” Sharpton said. “I was cooperating with an investigation.”
Sharpton called a news conference at his Harlem headquarters to talk about a story posted Monday on the website The Smoking Gun that said he had recorded conversations with mobsters.
The website said Sharpton was recruited by a police-FBI task force to record conversations with Mafia figures using electronic equipment hidden in a briefcase. It claimed he was known as Confidential Informant No. 7 in court papers.
Sharpton said he went to the FBI after he was threatened by mobsters working in the music business, a story he recounted in his 1996 book, “Go and Tell Pharaoh.”
Sharpton acknowledged using a recording device in a briefcase but said he did nothing wrong.
The Smoking Gun posted dozens of pages of documents that it said showed Sharpton’s dealings with mob figures. Sharpton said his lawyers would review the documents.
What is interesting is Sharpton said clearly he was not an associate of mobsters but was threatened by mob figures who controlled the music business. It raises questions what his real ties were to the mobsters. As he clearly has high ties in today’s political world.
It especially raises certain eyebrows about his background when friends and family members gathered recently at the White House for a private celebration of Michelle Obama’s 50th birthday — and Al Sharpton was also present. The high-profile Obama supporter was also on the dais atop the U.S. Capitol steps last year when the president was sworn in for a second term. He was seated in front of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two rows behind Beyonce and Jay Z, and about 20 feet from Eric Holder, the country’s top law enforcement officer. As head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Holder leads an agency that once reported that Obama’s inauguration guest also had La Cosa Nostra contacts beyond Gotham, and engaged in “conversations with LCN members from other parts of the United States.”