As I mentioned in my column this week, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery's Islamaphobic "expert," disgraced ex-FBI agent John Guandolo, recently accused Channel 12's Brahm Resnik and Fox 10's Mia Garcia of being "media collaborators," who "defend stealth jihadis." This, because of their coverage of Guandolo's coming to town on the taxpayer's dime.
Jeez, John-boy, what am I, chopped liver? I was the one who broke the story that you were coming to town, for cryin' out loud.
As Rodney Dangerfield was wont to say, "Death, where is thy sting?"
Guandolo, a serious wacko who thinks CIA director John Brennan is a secret Muslim, was recently flown to Tempe by Monty at public expense to lecture prosecutors and law enforcement officials on the "threat" posed by local mosques and practitioners of Islam.
Before Guandolo arrived, he labeled four local Muslim leaders on his blog as being representatives of either Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, and said that the ACLU should face a federal indictment for "providing material support or resources" to a terrorist organization.
Which, as anyone can tell by looking at the statute in question, is plainly ludicrous.
Monty got Guandolo to take the blog down, but since then, some local Muslims say they've been the victims of obscene phone calls and threats as a result of Guandolo's smear tactics.
Following the September 19 training session, Guandolo unloaded verbal ammo on the press and on a handful of non-Muslim religious leaders, who had signed a letter critical of the training.
Resnik and Garcia were smeared as "collaborators," because they didn't pucker up to Guandolo's tuchis.
The non-Muslim religious leaders had their faith and intelligence questioned by Guandolo, who claimed they "stand with jihadis," even though one of the religious leaders is a rabbi.
What, is the guy gonna do a jihad on himself?
I missed Monty's press conference this week, but the MCAO has posted it to YouTube, and it's a doozy.
Resnik was there, and he drilled Montgomery on Guandolo's assertion in one blog item that the Islamic associations opposed to his coming were "part of a massive jihadi network."
The journo also asked Montgomery about Guandolo's allegation that Resnik and Garcia were "collaborators."
But Montgomery dodged the issue, as best he could.
"Brahm, I'm not going to draw any conclusions based on what Mr. Guandolo puts in a blog," Monty replied, later adding. "My interest was on the training, and what was presented in the training. The circus that developed because of the poison environment created by [the Council for American-Islamic Relations] and the ACLU to begin with resulted in a lot of this back and forth. I'm not defending it. I'm not participating in it, and I'm not going to referee it."
Monty claimed that Guandolo's training did not "identify specific individuals locally and draw conclusions about them and encourage investigations and prosecutions."
The county attorney also maintained that Guandolo's training was "good," and that it addressed the larger threat of Islamic extremism. He refused to accept the premise that Guandolo's nutty statements kneecap his credibility as an "expert" of any kind.
More than 300 cops and prosecutors attended the training, according to Montgomery. He also told reporters that he did not know how much it cost to bring Guandolo and the other speakers to Arizona.
"Is the information available somewhere?" Montgomery shot back when asked why he didn't know the cost to the public. "Sure. Do I carry around in my hip pocket a 2" by 5" card with what we pay every trainer coming in? No. I've got a lot more important things to be doing."
Yeah, like spending our money on kooks like Guandolo.
One reporter present wondered: What if one of the persons Guandolo labels in his blog as being a collaborator or Muslim Brotherhood or a jihadi sympathizer or whatever gets hurt as a result?
The county attorney sidestepped the issue, saying he was not endorsing or acting on Guandolo's statements.
I would argue that he is doing exactly that, by bringing Guandolo to town and allowing him to instruct law enforcement professionals under the aegis of the county attorney's office.
Indeed, Monty's looking the other way at Guandolo's cheap McCarthyism is both disingenuous and dangerous.
Will Monty bring him back? He said he has no immediate plans to do so, but he did not rule out the possibility either.
Ol' Resnik definitely got under Monty's skin during the presser, which made for some entertaining exchanges between the pair.
Like when Monty let drop that he had some inside knowledge about how Resnik prepared his story on Guandolo.
Resnik asked him how he knew that.
"Maybe I'm a better investigator than you are," Monty said smugly.
"No, sir, I'm afraid you're not," Resnik retorted.
Then there was this back and forth:
Resnik: "Guandolo said he rocked your world."
Monty: "Uh, no he didn't. C'mon, Brahm."
Resnik (quoting from Guandolo's blog): "`Friday in Tempe, Arizona, UTT rocked the worlds of over 300 prosecutors and law enforcement officials.'"
Monty: "He said it in a very generalized statement. He didn't rock my world because I reviewed it ahead of time."
The perturbed expression on Monty's face as he entertains the question is priceless.
On Thursday, Montgomery had an op-ed in the Arizona Republic, blasting both CAIR and the ACLU for leading an "emotionally charged effort to censor the education of law enforcement."
But Monty never mentions the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that's butted heads with CAIR on more than one occasion.
The ADL sent Monty a letter critical of Guandolo a week before the event, stating its concern that "Guandolo's presentation would paint a distorted view of the Muslim community, and promote bigotry and misinformation."
Neither Montgomery nor Guandolo have responded publicly to the Jewish civil rights group, and that silence belies their many rationalizations.
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