Skip to main content
The Latest /
Hate and Discrimination

GOP Presidential Candidates Will Appear Alongside Disgraced Conspiracy Theorist John Guandolo

Frank Gaffney, a birther, anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist(link is external), is hosting a “National Security Action Summit(link is external)” this weekend in New Hampshire, where conference organizers say(link is external) he will be joined by GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum and George Pataki.

At Gaffney’s South Carolina summit in March, Santorum was confronted with a question about Obama’s supposed attempt to nuke Charleston, South Carolina(link is external), and his Iowa conference in May was dominated by fears about Muslim immigrants, courtesy of Donald Trump(link is external).

One speaker on the schedule of the New Hampshire event is John Guandolo, a disgraced former FBI agent who believes that CIA Director John Brennan is a secret Muslim(link is external) working for Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood. He also thinks President Obama is working for the Islamist cause.

According to Guandolo, Brennan decided to “convert to Islam(link is external)” in Saudi Arabia as “the culmination of a counterintelligence operation against him to recruit him.” He alleged that Brennan is now aligned with Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood(link is external), despite the fact that the Saudi government is one of the region’s chief opponents(link is external) of the Muslim Brotherhood and bankrolled(link is external) the Egyptian government’s suppression of the group.

While speaking(link is external) with conspiracy theorist radio host Rick Wiles, Guandolo said U.S. government officials like Brennan want to “aid and abet the enemy, and that is a criminal act(link is external),” adding that Obama is similarly “an individual who is significantly sympathetic to the cause of our enemies.”

Guandolo has repeatedly called for Obama(link is external) and Brennan(link is external) to be removed from their offices for their “treasonous” ties to Saudi Arabia, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood(link is external). In fact, Guandolo even believes that Obama is actively aiding Al Qaeda(link is external).

Guandolo wants the police to arrest(link is external) members of Muslim-American affinity groups, claiming that anyone associated with such groups are “terrorists(link is external),” and believes Muslims “do not have a First Amendment right to do anything(link is external).”

As the myth-busting outlet Snopes said(link is external)“Guandolo markets the idea of an imminent, pervasive threat to security in the United States has resulted from a conspiracy by Muslims to infiltrate the government at its highest levels and is paid for his 'expertise' through his being hired to provide lectures and training classes on the subject,” 

What was Guandolo doing before he started claiming that the U.S. government is under the control of Islamists who are “having great success of implementing Shariah law(link is external)”? He was an FBI agent who was forced to resign after he undermined a corruption probe by having sex with a source.

Guandolo was serving as an FBI agent involved in the case against ex-Rep. William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat convicted of corruption, when he was caught being(link is external) “inappropriately aggressive” with Lori Modi, a Virginia businesswoman government informant in the case who, later said that they “had consensual sexual intercourse” on “two occasions.”

“At some point, Guandolo's superiors saw the ‘document’ that ‘detailed his affairs’ with female agents and an internal probe was launched by the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility, according to the court filing,” TPM notes(link is external). “In the document, which has not been released, Guandolo also says ‘he had had an intimate relationship with a confidential source that he thought could damage an investigation’ -- probably referring to Mody.”

Bruce Alpert of the Times-Picayune reports(link is external) that Guandolo drove Mody “to all the meetings where she secretly taped and delivered cash to the New Orleans Democrat,” and “after Mody told prosecutors of her relationship with Guandolo, the government announced that they would not call her as a witness and scrambled to have the lead FBI agent in the case provide the testimony to establish the surveillance tapes.”

While Guandolo resigned before an investigation into the sex scandal could be launched (the office can only investigate current employees), he now portrays himself as a victim(link is external) of Islamists who took over the U.S. intelligence community and purged all dissenters.

But it seems that the sex scandal was good for his career, as Guandolo will now be speaking alongside Republican candidates for the White House.