MSNBC executives said the network was “unaware” that Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign gave $500,000 to a nonprofit organization owned by the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the network’s hosts, when he interviewed her before the election.
Weeks before Harris sat down with the MSNBC host for a friendly interview on Oct. 20, her campaign contributed two payments of $250,000 to his National Action Network.
MSNBC confirmed the payments to the Washington Free Beacon this week, claiming that Sharpton had failed to report the conflict of interest to the network’s chief executives and viewers.
The confirmation that the Harris campaign doled money out to Sharpton’s organization comes after Federal Election Commission disclosures filed in late October showed the campaign had contributed a total of $3,750,000 to 10 progressive black civil rights and religious groups ahead of the election.
After claiming Sharpton had kept them in the dark about the donations, MSNBC executives refused to say Tuesday whether there would be any repercussions for him.
The MSNBC host is an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump, and he celebrated Harris during a speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. While noting that his National Action Network does not endorse candidates, Sharpton continued to say that with Harris, “We are now on our way to the Oval Office. We won’t go back.”
During her short-lived 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, Harris promised Sharpton’s organization that, as president, she would sign a reparations study bill into law.
HOW KAMALA HARRIS PLOWED THROUGH $1 BILLION
Sharpton commented that he had known Harris “for a long time” and declined to fact-check or interrupt the Democratic presidential nominee once during the 16-minute October interview that aired just weeks before the election.
He leveled largely softball questions at the candidate. “I have to ask you about your opponent. He used a very ugly term about you last night, using the S-word as vice president. And how do you react to this kind of street talk from someone who wants to be president again and that was president?”
He also asked Harris if she thought the “resistance” to her campaign from “some men, black and white is misogynist” and questioned whether criticism that the vice president had incarcerated people on marijuana charges during her time as California district attorney was “orchestrated.”
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The latest revelations from MSNBC follow accusations Trump often leveled at mainstream media networks of covering for her during the campaign season.
He most prominently accused CBS News of conducting election interference after revelations that the network edited Harris’s answer to a question during a 60 Minutes interview.