It sure looks like Khizr Khan lied

Khizr Khan, whose son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in 2004 in Iraq, was scheduled to give an address in Toronto. However, on March 6, the group hosting the event, Ramsay Talks, announced their guest was forced to cancel because he “was notified that his travel privileges are being reviewed.”

Khan refused to comment any further on the matter, and multiple requests for comment from the largest newsrooms went unanswered.

Last Friday, however, as many were heading into the weekend, the Gold Star father finally explained why he cancelled the Toronto event.

“I did not want to go through the hassle of uncertain rules and capricious implementation,” the immigration attorney said in an email to journalist Hawes Spencer.

Khan continued, citing recent airport incidents in which immigration officers reportedly stopped Muhammad Ali Jr., the son of the late boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

“Seeing things like Muhammad Ali Jr. being detained. Muslim but American citizens being detained at the border,” Khan told Spencer.

Muhammad Ali Jr. was reportedly detained in Florida on Feb. 7. The second incident reportedly took place in Washington, D.C., on March 10, four days after Ramsay Talks announced Khan had cancelled on them.

Spencer’s report concluded with this line: “Khan says he won’t go abroad until there’s clarity.”

This is a long way away from the original version of events, which alleged the Toronto talk was called off because Khan was notified that his “travel privileges” were “being reviewed.”

CTV’s Rosa Hwang was the first to share that Khan had pulled out of the event. To date, her note on social media has been shared more than 20,000 times.

It’s important to note Khan himself didn’t explicitly state that his “travel privileges” were “being reviewed”; Ramsay Talks said that.

However, Ramsay Talks president Bob Ramsay said he was just repeating what Khan had told him.

“I don’t know exactly who conducted the review, but in speaking with Mr. Khan, it was certainly U.S. authorities,” Ramsay initially told the Washington Post. “That’s all I know.”

In separate remarks to a McClatchy reporter, Ramsay appeared less certain of himself, and referred all questions back to the Gold Star father, saying, “Alll [sic] the other information we got from me [sic] khan so you’d best check with him.”

It’s also important to note Ramsay Talks’ statement on March 6 included a quote from Khan. The quote includes a passage in which the father claimed some unidentified person or group notified him about his travel rights [emphasis added], “This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad. I have not been given any reason as to why.”

Many in media and political circles assumed immediately that U.S. officials were behind the alleged travel review.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents said they had never contacted Khan about any such thing. The Canadian foreign ministry said the same thing. Khan has not yet explained this part of his story.

News that Khan, who is a Muslim, had dropped out of the Toronto event came shortly after the White House reintroduced President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

However, if U.S. officials were behind the so-called review, as many assumed they were, it didn’t make much sense considering Khan has been a U.S. citizen for 30 years. He also emigrated from Pakistan, which is not included in Trump’s revised immigration order.

Then there was the lingering question about why a U.S. citizen would even need a visa to travel to Canada.

Most curious of all has been Khan’s sudden preference for silence. His refusal to speak with reporters about his “travel privileges” stood in sharp contrast to how he conducted himself during the 2016 presidential election. As the father of a slain U.S. Muslim soldier, Khan was a regular part of Hillary Clinton’s network of surrogates, joining her often on the campaign trail. He also sat for dozens of interviews, and he partook in multiple conference calls with campaign reporters.

Last Friday, when he explained he didn’t want to deal with the hassle of the revised immigration executive order, is the closest the Gold Star father has come to clarifying his reason for bailing on the Toronto event.

Why it took him 11 days to address the issue is anyone’s guess.

Khan’s story, which certainly seems to have evolved in just a few short days, stunk like hell from the beginning, and journalists should be commended for playing it safe. The caution demonstrated by media in response to this whole ordeal is a heartening change of pace for an industry that has struggled to cover the Trump administration.

(h/t Neontaster)