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Who can stab a rumor in your back? So when you bleed it's documented fact

Apr 8, 2021, 12 tweets

In 1988, in a column for the San Francisco Examiner, ex-Ramparts editor Warren Hinckle alleged that, according to his intelligence sources, Al Sharpton had been "a CIA contract agent who was involved in destabilizing the Manley regime in Jamaica."

Sharpton's role as an FBI informant in the '80s is of course widely known and well-documented. In 2014, The Smoking Gun released several files relating to his snitching on the mob, which you can read here. thesmokinggun.com/documents/inve…

Al Sharpton's FBI involvement almost certainly wasn't limited to getting drug trafficking mafia guys locked up. According to police and activist sources, he also tried to help the feds capture Black Panther member Assata Shakur while she was on the run. web.archive.org/web/2000091918…

The police source further said that Al Sharpton was trying to help the feds nab other black radicals, like Mutulu Shakur, who was eventually apprehended. web.archive.org/web/2000091918…

As to whether Hinckle's allegation that Sharpton was CIA, there's nothing proving it. But Sharpton does have some interesting (and very early) connections in Jamaica.

Sharpton, a boy wonder ordained at the age of nine. At age 10, Sharpton took a tour of the Caribbean with his mentor, Bishop F.D. Washington. They traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, where Sharpton met Marcus Garvey's widow, with whom he would keep up a correspondence.

According to David P. Rowe, Sharpton traveled to Jamaica in 1974 with Muhammad Ali as part of a delegation of the Nation of Islam that also included Louis Farrakhan. As part of the trip, Ali met with then PM Michael Manley. caribjournal.com/2016/06/14/muh…

I will note that I can't corroborate Sharpton being on this trip in any other source. The NOI's newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, has extensive coverage and doesn't mention Sharpton, though that's not definitive given that it's covered as an official NOI trip. voices.revealdigital.org/?a=d&d=BASMUSP…

Michael Manley's government was most certainly destabilized by the CIA, which backed the cocaine-trafficking "Shower Posse" that put the anti-communist Edward Seaga in power and helped establish Jamaica as an important node in the CIA's global drug trade. counterpunch.org/2019/06/14/edw…

Sharpton would later be photographed with Seaga (amusingly misidentified as "Edward Seahawks") in 1987, when Sharpton, Ali, and more went down to Kingston for a big soiree in honor of Don King (whom Sharpton snitched on btw).

But this isn't really dispositive of a relationship with Seaga, as Sharpton was also photographed at the same event with Seaga's antagonist, Michael Manley. books.google.com/books?id=-7MDA…

*misidentified as "Ed Seahawks," rather

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