Racial hustler Al Sharpton owes nearly a million dollars in campaign debt, 17-years after running unsuccessfully for president in the Democrat primary, reported Fox News.
Al Sharpton’s 2004 presidential campaign still has about $925k in outstanding debts, including a $208,000 FEC fine levied 12 years ago over Sharpton’s flagrant misuse and misreporting of campaign funds https://t.co/Up60mz4Sf1 pic.twitter.com/svwuej8sJy
— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) July 26, 2021
Sharpton’s original debt of $567,000 has almost doubled after he came to a settlement with the Federal Elections Commission over the unpaid debt.
“Sharpton, his presidential campaign committee, Sharpton 2004, and Andrew Rivera, in his official capacity as treasurer, agreed to pay a civil penalty of $208,000 for failing to report accurately all receipts and expenditures, receiving excessive and prohibited in-kind contributions and accepting impermissible corporate contributions,” according to an April 2009 FEC press release cited by Fox.
Sharpton, 66, made a million dollars in 2019 from his own charity and has a contractual relationship with MSNBC, hosting his own show on the network from 2011 to 2015 that has paid him handsomely over the years.
He first came to prominence representing 15-year old Tawana Brawley, who falsely claimed she had been abducted and repeatedly raped by six white men in the late 1980s.
This is not the first time Sharpton’s financial dealings have come under fire.
In 2014, the New York Times reported that Sharpton had over $4.5 million in unpaid state and federal taxes tax liens against him and his for-profit businesses.
It’s “the kind of practice by nonprofit groups that the United States Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration recently characterized as ‘abusive,’ or ‘potentially criminal’ if the failure to turn over or collect taxes is willful,” said the Times.
Technically speaking, Sharpton, as the presidential candidate is not responsible for campaign debt. That burden falls to Andrew Rivera, the campaign treasurer, said the New York Post.
Sharpton, however, has said he has a moral obligation to pay the old campaign debts.
“I am willing to work out a settlement for all claims with my own money to the degree that I’m allowed and will raise money directly,” said Sharpton. “Even if I am not legally liable for it, I am certainly morally responsible.”
