Southwest Airlines condemns 'cruel' anti-Muslim tweet targeting employee

Corrections & Clarifications: The public disclosure of John Guandolo's affair with a confidential source occurred after his Dec. 1, 2008, resignation from the FBI. The date of his resignation and the timing of the disclosure were incorrect in an earlier version of the story.

Southwest Airlines on Saturday condemned John Guandolo — a former FBI agent whose "Muslim threat" training has repeatedly ensnared Arizona law-enforcement agencies in controversy — for a "cruel and inappropriate" tweet targeting an airline employee.

Guandolo posted the tweet picturing the unidentified worker as he traveled to the Western Conservative Conference in Phoenix on Friday.

"I wish this were shocking...a sharia adherent muslim (aka jihadi) at my plane," he wrote, adding the hashtag "#shariakills."

Guandolo tagged President Donald Trump, national security adviser John Bolton, the Department of Homeland Security and others in the tweet.

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Backlash swift

Twitter users began calling Southwest's attention to the post, urging the company to ban Guandolo from future flights.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has described the divisive speaker, who founded an organization focusing on threats posed by Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, as a "disreputable character" and an anti-Muslim extremist.

Southwest blasted Guandolo's post Saturday night, saying the company had reported the tweet for removal.

"We pride ourselves on our People-focused Culture fostered by the most caring and loving Employees in the world, and the Southwest Family stands strong with our Employee who was the target of this cruel and inappropriate post," a spokesperson for the airline wrote. "At Southwest, we stand for embracing civility and living by the Golden Rule, and we ask our Customers to do the same."

As of Sunday morning, Guandolo's post had been removed.

He was not listed as a speaker Western Conservative Conference on the event's website, but a tweet posted by Guandolo Sunday indicated he lectured on the "Islamic threat" in the United States.

History of scandal

Guandolo resigned from the FBI on Dec. 1, 2008. His earlier affair with a confidential source came to light in 2009 in a controversial political corruption case.

He made headlines again in 2014 when Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery came under fire for hiring him for a training session.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and several Muslim community leaders protested the training, which Guandolo claimed would reveal the truth about Muslim terrorist groups.

In 2017, the Arizona Police Association used a grant from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office to pay for a similar "anti-jihad" law-enforcement seminar in Mesa, led by Guandolo.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged the APA to cancel the seminar, contending that Guandolo regularly put Muslims at risk by making false claims about them.

Imraan Siddiqi, executive director of CAIR-Arizona, said this incident only further proves Guandolo is an inappropriate choice for training local law enforcement.

"This vindicates what we’ve been saying for the past four years," Saddiqi said. "He’s a completely unhinged and inappropriate individual who is a harm to society, but he’s been given a platform and rewarded handsomely for coming here."