Al Sharpton is raking in the big bucks off of his non-profit organization, National Action Network. That’s right, it’s non-profit.
As the NY Post editorial board points out, the organization already pays him an easy quarter mil every year. But now he’s found a way to make another half million from his donors – all in the name of selling his life story or something:
Everyone agrees that National Action Network revolves around the Rev. Al Sharpton, which is what makes the nonprofit’s $531,000 payment to him so unseemly.
The cash buys the NAN the rights to The Rev’s life story for 10 years, supposedly so that the charity can profitably license the rights to Hollywood and other comers.
Supposedly.
According to Sharpton, two board members came to him with the idea as a way for NAN to have some reliable income after he retires. After all, the logic goes, he’s 64 but clearly the main selling point for all the nonprofit’s fund-raising.
Problem is, it’s not really clear who’d be buying what, or when. If Spike Lee comes calling, maybe the bet pays off — but, with all due respect, Sharpton isn’t exactly Malcolm X.
So the purchase could wind up a windfall for The Rev and a straight loss for NAN, which already pays him a comfortable $244,000-plus a year, plus perks. And it’s not like the group has any expertise in selling such rights: Its expertise is in social-justice issues.
Kudos to The Post’s Melissa Klein for discovering the bizarre payment in an obscure tax filing, which claims the board’s “executive committee independently approved” the deal.
Sorry: As noted, nothing that happens at NAN is truly independent of Al Sharpton: It’s his baby, start to finish. Which means the issue could put the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status at risk if the IRS treats this as an excess benefit to one of its key officials.
Of course, even the feds are wary of crossing The Rev: The IRS has given him years to make good on millions in unpaid taxes, even swallowing his claims that years of records vanished in a fire.
Heck, getting away with the unseemly has been Al Sharpton’s M.O. ever since he rose to fame in the Tawana Brawley affair. No real wonder that he’s headed to retirement in the same outrageous spirit.
What is there left to say. Sharpton is a crook and he’s allowed to get away with it to a certain degree. And now he’s found another way to enrich himself off of his non-profit stash. What’s worse is that this is all couched around his narcissistic opinion of himself.