Exposing the Sharpton Shakedown

Anheuser-Busch gave him six figures, Colgate-Palmolive shelled out $50,000 and Macy's and Pfizer have contributed thousands to the Rev. Al Sharpton's charity.

Almost 50 companies - including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase - and some labor unions sponsored Sharpton's National Action Network annual conference in April.

Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton - who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers. In some cases, they hire him as a consultant.

The cash flows even as the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has been conducting a grand-jury investigation of NAN's finances.

A General Motors spokesman told The Post that NAN had repeatedly - and unsuccessfully - asked for contributions for six years, beginning in August 2000.

Then, in December 2006, Sharpton threatened to call a boycott of the carmaker over the closing of an African-American-owned GM dealership in The Bronx, and he picketed outside GM headquarters on Fifth Avenue.

Last year, General Motors gave NAN a $5,000 donation. It gave $5,000 more this year, a spokesman said, calling NAN a "worthy" organization.

You either give Sharpton's organizations money, or else they boycott them and the media follows along like lapdogs.

These organizations and corporations have decided that it is simply easier to pay off Sharpton's National Action Network than fight the possible bad press that would come from boycotts or other media actions taken by Sharpton.

Let's also recall that the IRS and NYS Attorney General have been looking at Sharpton's finances for years, demanding better accounting for where all the money is coming from and where it's going. He owes back taxes, but claims the NAN had bad recordkeeping, which resulted in the IRS overestimating the organization's tax liability. That's on top of investigations into his run for public office and misuse of campaign funds.