Rev. Al Sharpton Downplays Being A Rat

The Rev. Al Sharpton was defiant Tuesday, saying he should be praised not scorned for having once helped the FBI by secretly recording conversations with mobsters.

“I was not and am not a rat because I wasn’t with the rats,” he told a packed news conference at his National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. “I’m a cat. I chase rats.”

Sharpton summoned the press to address a lengthy story posted Monday by The Smoking Gun website that provided stunning new details of his role as an FBI informant known as “CI-7” in the 1980s.

Sharpton claimed it was all old news. He insisted he went to the feds only after his life was endangered by mobsters — and that in his mind, he never considered himself an informant.

“I don’t know if I’m C-7 or B-19. I don’t know none of that. I know I was threatened. I did what anybody would do...other than a thug. And I cooperated,” he said.

The Smoking Gun provided a different account, as have other news organizations in the past. That version claims that Sharpton became an informant to prevent the possibility he would be charged after he was caught on video nodding along as a drug kingpin discussed cocaine deals.

But Sharpton said that was a failed sting. He said it was he who contacted the FBI after his life was threatened by mobster Joseph (Joe Bana) Buonanno and others as he pushed for more black concert promoters to get work in the mobbed-up music business.

“In my own mind I was not an informant,” Sharpton said. “I was cooperating with an investigation.”

He said he’d do the same thing all over again.

“The conversations were recorded. And I would record them today,” he said. “They were threatening to kill me!”At a separate news conference, Mayor de Blasio said he is sticking by Sharpton.

“Doesn’t change the relationship one bit. I’m very proud to be his friend,” de Blasio said. “I think he has done a lot of good for the city of New York and this country.”

Sharpton cast the newfound attention to his collaboration with the feds as racist, saying no one should be surprised a crime victim would go to authorities.

The Smoking Gun report said that Sharpton’s conversations, taped with a wired briefcase, including 10 face-to-face meetings with Buonanno, helped the feds get wire taps targeting a host of Genovese crime family members. Those wiretaps, in turn, helped secure convictions of several mobsters, the website said.

Sharpton said Tuesday that he had no idea what the feds used his information for besides investigating the threats, but doubted it played any significant role in bringing down mob figures.

He said he never met top mobsters like Genovese boss Vincent "Chin" Gigante, known as the “Oddfather,” who feigned mental illness and was often photographed wearing night clothes.

“I don’t walk around with guys that walk outside in pajamas,” Sharpton said.

The new revelations about Sharpton’s past came as he prepares to stage the National Action Network’s national convention, which will feature speeches by de Blasio on Wednesday and by President Obama on Friday.

Sharpton quipped that he only regrets one thing - the re-appearance of photographs taken in the 1980s that show his much-heftier self.

“We’re used to the attacks,” he said. "The only thing I was embarrassed by is those old fat pictures. Could y’all use tomorrow the new [ONES]? Because a lot of my younger members don’t know how fat I was.”

Says He's a Cat Not a Rat...
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