The IRS yesterday hit several employees and consultants of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s civil-rights organization with subpoenas demanding a wide range of documents as part of an ongoing investigation, sources said.
Charlie King, acting executive director of Sharpton’s National Action Network, said he did not know the nature of the investigation, but noted that Sharpton himself was not among the four people he knew to have received the subpoenas.
The Internal Revenue Service probe is the latest in a long line of investigations into Sharpton and the National Action Network, his Harlem-based nonprofit group, over the years.
“Here we go again,” said Sharpton, who claimed that prior probes have suspiciously come to public light when he was in the midst of making political moves. “This is more smearing.
“I’m getting ready to make a presidential endorsement,” noted Sharpton, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.
“How many state and federal investigations have you been through with me? Whatever it is, it’s part of the territory. I’m a public figure.”
King said he knew of “just four employees and consultants for the National Action Network” who received “document subpoenas” yesterday.
He declined to identify them.
However, sources told The Post that one of them is Sharpton’s spokeswoman, Rachel Noerdlinger. She did not return a request for comment.
While saying he had not seen the subpoenas, King said he believes they “cast a wide net” for documents. Most of that paperwork, he said, is not in the possession of the people who received the subpoenas.
King said he did not know if the subpoenas were issued by the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division rather than a division of the agency that handles civil inquiries.
“The irony of this is we’ve been working with a number of government agencies to make sure that we’re up to speed on all of our outstanding paperwork,” said King.
“I can’t even fathom” why the IRS might be eyeing the NAN, King said. “I have no idea, zero idea, not a hint.”
King said the NAN, because of the nature of its work, is accustomed to being monitored by governmental agencies.
“When you’re in the midst of civil rights like this, it’s nothing new,” King said.
“Dr. [Martin Luther] King went through it, and Rev. Sharpton has been through it before.”
In October, the union that represents NYPD detectives called for the NAN to be investigated for making payments to victims of the 2006 police shooting that killed Sean Bell hours before he was to be married.
Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino suggested that Sharpton’s group was “purchasing testimony” from Bell’s survivors and Trent Benefield, who was wounded during the shooting outside a Queens strip club.
Sharpton scoffed at Palladino’s claim.