A meteorologist at a Colorado news station has been fired after he shared a tweet comparing federal agents policing cities amid the recent unrest across the country to Nazi Germany.
Marty Coniglio shared a picture of soldiers posing with Adolf Hitler and captioned the July 23 post: ‘Federal police in cities … now where have I seen that before?’
The following day Coniglio, who has been on television in Denver for three decades, confirmed he had stopped working for 9News.
His social media profiles no longer refer to the network.
Marty Coniglio ‘no longer employed by 9News’ the station confirmed after his controversial social media post last month
Coniglio shared a picture of German soldiers posing with Adolf Hitler and captioned the July 23 post: ‘Federal police in cities … now where have I seen that before?’
Staff at the network reportedly received an email on Friday July 24 announcing that Coniglio had gone.
‘Dear Colleagues, I want to share that Marty Coniglio is no longer an employee of 9News. We thank him for his many years of service,’ the internal email read.
The TV station’s president and general manager also confirmed their working relationship had ceased.
‘Marty is no longer employed by 9News,’ Mark Cornetta wrote in an email to the Denver Post.
However Cornetta declined to comment on how or why Coniglio had stopped working there.
Last year Cornetta told Westworld that he was disappointed Coniglio was planning on leaving due to health problems, saying ‘he’s done a fantastic job’ and is ‘a really smart scientist who’s added an incredible amount to our meteorological team.’
Coniglio was supposed to leave December 2019 but formalized his contract renewal mid-January, saying that ‘it will go past this summer.’
It’s unclear who initiated the departure.
The Colorado GOP criticized the tweet and called it ‘radical hate against law enforcement’
The backlash came amid ongoing protests against police brutality were responded to with federal troops. Pictured on Tuesday, July 21, in Portland, Oregon
Coniglio told the Denver Post in a text message that he would ‘not be able to talk about the situation for at least a week or so.’
He told Westworld in a text: ‘I am moving along with the next opportunities coming up in my life. I don’t really have anything to say about past events.’
Coniglio’s tweet featuring the leader of Germany’s Nazi Party was posted on the same day President Trump announced he was sending troops into cities with democratic leaders.
Coniglio confirmed his departure and said he would ‘not be able to talk about the situation for at least a week or so’
Many of those leaders declined Trump’s offer to help combat crime, saying their local police forces were handling it in their own way.
Coniglio later deleted the tweet at the advice of his Republican activist friend, Rick Endstrom, who wrote: ‘Oh, boy. @martyconiglio stepped (on) it big-time…. Take it down, bro.’
But others had taken screen shots of the post. He received criticism for the comparison including from Colorado’s Republican Party chairman.
‘Comparing the brave men and women of our law enforcement community to Nazis is absolutely reprehensible,’ U.S. Rep. Ken Buck commented as he shared Coniglio’s post.
The politician’s tweet was followed by one from his party that included unifying persuasive language to suggest bias and that referred to the social media post as ‘radical hate.’
‘Republicans know that the press leans to the left, but are fellow reporters okay with this type of radical hate against law enforcement from employees at local news stations?’ the Colorado GOP posted.
Coniglio has been at the station for 16 years and prior to that appeared on CBS4 and Denver7.
His departure followed outrage over protesters in Portland, Oregon being snatched off the streets by unlabeld officers and bundled into unmarked vans.
He’s not the only one who said there were similarities between what was happening to protesters and what occurred under Hitler.
Earlier that week House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. said it reminded him of Germany’s Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police).
‘That kind of activity is the activity of a police state, and this president and this attorney general seem to be doing everything they possibly can to impose Gestapo activities in local communities, and that is what I have been warning about for a long time,’ Clyburn told CNN last month.
‘I do believe that this election is all about the preservation of the greatest democracy that this country has ever known.’