Al Sharpton Says FBI’s NASCAR Investigation Doesn’t Close Bubba Wallace Incident: ‘It’s Clear What a Noose Represents’

MSNBC’s Al Sharpton pushed back hard on the notion that the FBI finding in the Bubba Wallace NASCAR noose incident closes the issue, pointing out that it doesn’t answer the question of why there was a noose in the stall to begin with.

In Wednesday morning’s edition of Morning Joe, co-host Willie Geist referenced the FBI report, telling Sharpton “We should take it as good news that someone didn’t place it into his stall specifically, as the only full-time black driver in NASCAR, who pushed to have those Confederate flags removed from NASCAR events, and NASCAR did take that step last week. But it does appear there was a noose, as the FBI is calling it, placed in that garage last fall.”

“The FBI identified it as a noose, NASCAR said it was a noose, so went along with the FBI’s characterization. It was a noose,” Sharpton said. “So the question is, even if they did not know that Bubba Wallace was going to use that stall, why was a noose in the stall? It’s clear what a noose represents.”

“And I think to go, whether or not they knew that sooner or later the one black driver would use that stall, really doesn’t answer why it was in the stall at all,” Rev. Sharpton added. “And then, did someone know that it was in the stall when they did belatedly assigned Bubba there? So I don’t think this answers a lot of questions, and clearly from what we just saw, of Bubba Wallace, it does not seem he, who was the victim and possible target in this matter, seems to be satisfied with this. So I do not think that we’ve seen closure in this particular inquiry.”

Mr. Wallace spoke out in a CNN interview Tuesday night, raising similar concerns to Sharpton’s. As both men pointed out, the FBI did conclude that a noose was present, and that it had been placed there long before Wallace was assigned that particular stall for a race.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.