Sharpton and Jackson: 'They were kind of the best of enemies': What Al Did to Jesse
Thursday, December 9, 2004 at 10:29PM 
Harold Doley Jr., David Brand, Yuri Tadesse, and Reverend Wyatt
Tee Walker, all top associates of Al Sharpton, participated in a news
barrage against Jesse Jackson in early 2001 that elevated Sharpton to a
new national status. With the illegitimate-baby story spawning an array
of other, mostly financial scandals, Sharpton, The New York Times
Magazine reported, "offered himself up as Jackson's first defender"
while "sources close to him were disparaging Jackson." The prime
instigator was Doley, a black Republican millionaire who supported
Sharpton financially, giving to the National Action Network and even
subsidizing the family while Sharpton served out his 90-day jail term
that spring. The first black with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange
and a linchpin in Jackson's creation of the Wall Street Project, Doley
told the Voice: "I said to Sharpton, 'I'm going to bring Jesse down and
make you the man.' Al said, 'I'm ready.' " Doley said he talked with
then New York Postcolumnist Rod Dreher, while Brand, a businessman with
direct ties to Sharpton for more than a decade, "interfaced with the
masthead at the Post." Doley and Brand acknowledge that they and
Sharpton knew about the baby months before the story broke in The
National Enquirer in mid January; Doley says the Post was on it early
but let the Enquirer break it. [more]