New York's Sharpton: Old FBI Tape 'Dirty Tricks'
Tue Jul 23, 3:26 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Rev. Al Sharpton on Tuesday accused a cable TV network and the U.S. government of conducting "a campaign of dirty tricks" to disrupt his possible presidential bid by releasing a 19-year-old FBI videotape of him being approached about a cocaine deal.
In the 1983 tape to be broadcast on Tuesday night by Home Box Office's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel," Sharpton nods, says "right" and "I hear you" as an undercover agent posing as a South American drug dealer outlines potential profits.
Sharpton's attorney Michael Hardy told a news conference the activist planned to file a lawsuit on Wednesday against HBO seeking $500 million in damages for portraying Sharpton in a disparaging light.
HBO Sports spokesman Ray Stallone said, "We stand by our reporting" and that the show would air as scheduled. An FBI spokesman declined comment. HBO is a unit of Time Warner Entertainment, which is jointly owned by AOL Time Warner and AT&T .
Sharpton, who was not charged as a result of the recording, said the conversation was originally about promoting boxing matches and suddenly turned to drug dealing.
"HBO Sports and the U.S. government is initiating a campaign of dirty tricks against me to disrupt my probable presidential campaign," Sharpton, who heads the Harlem-based National Action Network, said in a statement.
At Tuesday's news conference, Sharpton was unapologetic and determined that "it will take more than a distorted 19-year-old tape ... that starts in midconversation and has no beginning and no end" to derail his 2004 presidential bid.
