Khan Was No Accident

Khizr Khan, the Muslim Gold Star father that the mainstream media and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been using to criticize Donald J. Trump, has deep ties to the government of Saudi Arabia—and to international Islamist investors through his own law firm.

In addition to those ties to the wealthy Islamist nation, Mr. Khan also has ties to controversial immigration programs that wealthy foreigners can use to essentially buy their way into the United States—and has deep ties to the “Clinton Cash” narrative through the Clinton Foundation.

Mr. Khan and his wife Ghazala Khan both appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention to attack, on Dem Mrs. Clinton’s behalf, Donald Trump—the Republican nominee for president. Their son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Khizr Khan, in his speech to the DNC, lambasted Mr.Trump for wanting to temporarily halt Islamic migration to America from countries with a proven history of exporting terrorists.

Since then, Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos—who served as a senior adviser to the president in Bill Clinton’s White House and is a Clinton Foundation donor as well as a host on the ABC network—pushed Mr. Trump on the matter in an interview. Mr. Trump’s comments in that interview have sparked the same mini-rebellion inside his party, in the media and across the aisle that has happened many times before.

The usual suspects inside the GOP, from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to House Speaker Paul Ryan to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, have condemned Mr. Trump in one way or another. The media condemnation has been swift. Democrats, as well their friends throughout media, are driving the train as fast as they can.

But until now, it looked like the Khans were just Gold Star parents who the big bad Donald Trump attacked. It turns out, however, in addition to being Gold Star parents, the Khans are financially and legally tied deeply to the industry of Muslim migration–and to the government of Saudi Arabia and to the Clintons themselves.

Mr. Khan, according to Intelius as also reported by Walid Shoebat, used to work at the law firm Hogan Lovells, LLP, a major D.C. law firm that has been on retainer as the law firm representing the government of Saudi Arabia in the United States for years. Citing federal government disclosure forms, the Washington Free Beacon reported the connection between Saudi Arabia and Hogan Lovells a couple weeks ago.

“Hogan Lovells LLP, another U.S. firm hired by the Saudis, is registered to work for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia through 2016, disclosures show,” Joe Schoffstall of the Free Beacon reported.

The federal form filed with the Dept. of Justice is a requirement under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which makes lobbyists and lawyers working on behalf of foreign governments and other agents from abroad with interests in the United States register with the federal government.

The government of Saudi Arabia, of course, has donated heavily to the Clinton Foundation.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given between $10 and $25 million to the foundation while Friends of Saudi Arabia has contributed between $1 and $5 million,” Mr. Schoffstall wrote.

Mr. Trump, of course, has called on Mrs. Clinton to have the Clinton Foundation return the money.

“Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Facebook post back in June, according to Politico. “Hillary must return all money from such countries!”

“Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate,” Mr. Trump said in a separate Facebook posting at the time. “I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!”

Of course, to this day, Mrs. Clinton and her Clinton Foundation have kept the money from the Saudi Arabian government.

Mr. Schoffstall’s piece in the Free Beacon also notes how Hogan Lovells lobbyist Robert Kyle, per Federal Election Commission records, has bundled more than $50,000 in donations for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign this year.

Mr. Khan’s connections with the Hogan Lovells firm run deep, according to a report from Law.com written by Katelyn Polantz.

“Many lawyers at Hogan Lovells remember the week in 2004 when U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan lost his life to a suicide bomber,” Ms. Polantz wrote. “Then-Hogan & Hartson attorneys mourned the death because the soldier’s father, Khizr Khan, a Muslim American immigrant, was among their beloved colleagues.”

Ms. Polantz wrote that Mr. Khan worked at the mega-D.C. law firm for years.

“Khan spent seven years, from 2000 to 2007, in the Washington, D.C., office of then-Hogan & Hartson,” Ms. Polantz wrote. “He served as the firm’s manager of litigation technology. Although he did not practice law while at Hogan, Khan was well versed in understanding the American courts system. On Thursday night, he described his late son dreaming of becoming a military lawyer.”

But representing the Clinton Foundation backing Saudi Arabian government and having one of its lobbyists bundle $50,000-plus for Clinton’s campaign are hardly the only places where the Khan-connected Hogan Lovells D.C. mega-firm brush elbows with Clinton Cash.

The firm also handles Hillary Clinton’s taxes and is deeply connected with the email scandal whereby when she was Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton set up a home-brew email server system that jeopardized classified information handling and was “extremely careless” according to FBI director James Comey.

“A lawyer at Hogan & Hartson [Howard Topaz] has been Bill and Hillary Clinton’s go-to guy for tax advice since 2004, according to documents released Friday by Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” The American Lawyer’s Nate Raymond wrote in 2008, as Hillary Clinton ran for president that year. “The Clintons’ tax returns for 2000-07 show combined earnings of $109 million, on which they paid $33 million in taxes. New York-based tax partner Howard Topaz has a broad tax practice, and also regularly advises corporations on M&A and executive compensation.”

Breitbart News’s Patrick Howley, in a deep investigative piece on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, late last year uncovered how Mr. Topaz’s firm—which employed Mr. Khan while Mr. Topaz did Hillary Clinton’s taxes—is also connected to the email scandal.

“Topaz was a partner at Hogan & Hartson, which later merged to become known as Hogan Lovells, where Topaz continues to practice. The firm’s lawyers were major donors to Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign,” Mr. Howley wrote.

For her private email system, Mrs. Clinton used a spam filtering program MX Logic.

“Hogan & Hartson handled the patent for MX Logic’s email-filtering program, which McAfee bought the small company for $140 million in 2009 in order to acquire,” Mr. Howley wrote. “The MX Logic company’s application for a trademark for its SPAMTRAQ program was filed in 2004 on Hogan & Hartson stationery and signed by a Hogan & Hartson attorney. Hogan & Hartson has been responsible for MX Logic annual reports. The email company’s Clinton links present more evidence that Clinton’s political and legal establishment was monitoring her private email use.”

If that all isn’t enough, that same Hogan & Hartson law firm—now Hogan Lovells—employed Loretta Lynch, the current Attorney General of the United States. Ms. Lynch infamously just a few weeks ago met with Bill Clinton on her private jet in Phoenix just before clearing Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing when it came to her illicit private email server system.

Mr. Khan’s own website for his own personal law firm KM Khan Law Office shows he represents clients in the business of buying visas to enter the United States. One of his specific areas of practice, according to the website, is “E2 Treaty Investors, EB5 Investments & Related Immigration Services.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee, has detailed how the EB5 immigration program is “riddled with flaws and corruption.”

“Maybe it is only here on Capitol Hill—on this island surrounded by reality—that we can choose to plug our ears and refuse to listen to commonly accepted facts,” Mr. Grassley said earlier this year. “The Government Accountability Office, the media, industry experts, members of congress, and federal agency officials, have concurred that the program is a serious problem with serious vulnerabilities. Allow me to mention a few of the flaws.”

From there, Sen. Grassley listed out several of the “flaws” with the EB5 immigration program that Mr. Khan works in:

– Investments can be spent before business plans are approved.

– Regional Center operators can charge exorbitant fees of foreign nationals in addition to their required investments.

– Jobs created are not “direct” or verifiable jobs but rather are “indirect” and based on estimates and economic modeling.

– Jobs created by U.S. investors are counted by the foreign national when obtaining a green card, even if EB-5 money is only a fraction of the total invested.

– Investment funds are not adequately vetted.

– Gifts and loans are acceptable sources of funds from foreign nationals.

– The investment level has been stagnant for nearly 25 years.

– There’s no prohibition against foreign governments owning or operating regional centers or projects.

– Regional centers can be rented or sold without government oversight or approval.

– Regional centers don’t have to certify that they comply with securities laws.

– There’s no oversight of promoters who work overseas for the regional centers.

– There’s no set of sanctions for violations, no recourse for bad actors.

– There are no required background checks on anyone associated with a regional center.

– Regional centers draw Targeted Employment Area boundaries around poor areas in order to come in at a lower investment level, yet the jobs created are not actually created in those areas.

– Every Targeted Employment Area designation is rubberstamped by the agency.

– Adjudicators are pressured to get to a yes, especially for those politically connected.

– Visas are not properly scrutinized.

– Visas are pushed through despite security warnings.

– Files and applications lack basic and necessary information to monitor compliance.

– The agency does not do site visits for each and every project.

– There’s no transparency on how funds are spent, who is paid, and what investors are told about the projects they invest in.

That’s not to mention the fact that, according to Sen. Grassley, there have been serious national security violations in connection with the EB5 program that Mr. Khan works in and around already. In fact, the program—according to Grassley—was used by Middle Eastern operatives from Iran to attempt to illicitly enter the United States.

“There are also classified reports that detail the national security, fraud and abuse. Our committee has received numerous briefings and classified documents to show this side of the story,” Mr. Grassley said in the early February statement. “The enforcement arm of the Dept. of Homeland Security wrote an internal memo that raises significant concerns about the program. One section of the memo outlines concerns that it could be used by Iranian operatives to infiltrate the United States. The memo identifies seven main areas of program vulnerability, including the export of sensitive technology, economic espionage, use by foreign government agents and terrorists, investment fraud, illicit finance and money laundering.”

Maybe all of this is why–as Breitbart News has previously noted–the Democratic National Convention made absolutely no mention of the Clinton Foundation or Clinton Global Initiative. Hillary Clinton’s coronation ceremony spent exactly zero minutes of the four nights of official DNC programming talking about anything to do with perhaps one of the biggest parts of her biography.