The FBI is seemingly investigating anti-Israel comments made by Americans on social media, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has alleged. In response, the FBI said it does not investigate activities protected by the First Amendment.
The civil rights group said it documented at least one high-profile case in which the FBI had sought to interrogate Asad Khan, a celebrated retired lieutenant colonel who served in the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.
“Two agents came to my house on July 29 and my daughter
answered the door,” Khan said in a video interview with UPI. Khan was out of the country at the time. “They were very professional, and they said I had not done anything wrong or illegal, but they want to discuss with me some comments that I allegedly posted online that were anti-American.”
The agents told his daughter to tell him to report to a nearby embassy to talk to the legal attaché there. Instead, he reached out to CAIR for advice on what he should do.
On his behalf, CAIR sent a letter to the FBI declining their interrogation request. Neither CAIR nor Khan have heard anything further from the FBI. “We don’t know what’s going on at this point. But we’re just kind of just in limbo,” Khan said.
Khan has had a storied career, celebrated as far back as 2002 in the Los Angeles Times. Born in Pakistan, Khan first traversed the Khyber Pass leading into Afghanistan as an 11-year-old refugee and returned 31 years later to hunt for Osama Bin Laden as a U.S. Marine.
He became a leading asset in America’s Global War on Terror. Much of his time as a Marine remains classified, but he is known to have served in Special Forces missions in Afghanistan, among other critical roles.
Since his retirement, Khan has become an author and entrepreneur — and maintains social media presences on LinkedIn and YouTube, where he shares his expertise on geopolitics and national security. In the past year, his posts have largely commented on the ramifications of Israel’s war in Gaza. He retains top-level security clearances.
“So, it makes no sense, right? … I don’t know what anti-American is, nor have I ever said anything anti-American,” Khan said, showing a copy of the U.S. Constitution on his desk. “My posts are all online. You can go on LinkedIn and YouTube and see what I’ve said.”
He added that he has been “critical of our government officials and our military officials of our policies that I don’t agree with” as he insisted it’s his Constitutional right under the First Amendment to do so. He challenged any potential critics to search through his posts.
“Between you and me, I don’t care about Hezbollah, or Hamas, or Islamic Jihad or Taliban, and all that stuff. Just because I’m a Muslim doesn’t mean I support them,” he said. “I wouldn’t even know where to go and look up their accounts. Nor do I care.”
He said his biggest issue right now is the killing of children in Gaza. “Killing children is just immoral. It’s wrong,” he said. He warned the United States of “going off on these misadventures.”
“Like, ‘Hey? Let’s go to Iraq.’ You know, I risked my life over there, in Afghanistan, and it was a misadventure. I don’t want to get too far deep into it. But there were no [weapons of mass destruction]. We got lied to,” he said. “Now there’s thousands of Americans traumatized and homeless veterans living on the street, and nobody seems to care about them.”
Khan noted his son also served in the Marines overseas. He doesn’t want his grandchildren to have to do the same. “I’m speaking out against it because I believe I fundamentally believe it’s wrong,” he said. “My son also fought for our nation based on lies.”
The former battalion commander added that he has “never advocated for violence of any sort” nor has he ever advocated hate of any sort. And though he expressed support for people’s right to protest Israel, he said he has never attended a demonstration. And he condemned protesters who have advocated for violence.
“The message is, we’re all Americans. Whatever your skin color is, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what your religion is. It matters if you believe in this document, the Constitution,” Khan said. “I don’t support any other country except for the United States. None.”
Khan said that, now, he doesn’t even agree with the United States giving money to any other country when “we have people in North Carolina and Tennessee flooded out, and they don’t have enough resources.”
After the FBI visited his home, Khan filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the bureau to see if there was a file on him and there was nothing. Still, “obviously some feathers got ruffled in the government, or maybe in the military,” he said.
And he said the FBI agents who visited his home acknowledged his record of service to the United States when his children answered the door. During their conversation, the FBI agents admitted an “allegation” didn’t come from their office but from another office in the government.
“I myself feel singled out. And was it because of my religion? Was it because of my ethnicity? Was it because of my funny name?” he said.
Khan said his dispute with the FBI could have been avoided if the bureau had tried contacting him first before visiting his home “with guns and badges,” which he blasted as “uncalled for.”
When asked why he believed the FBI had visited his home and wanted to question him despite insisting he did nothing wrong, Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer for CAIR who sat in on the interview, interjected.
“The only conclusion that’s reasonable here is that the FBI is approaching people in the Muslim community speaking out on these atrocities that are fueled by our missiles and bombs, and they don’t like it. And so they’re trying to stop it,” Abbas said.
“If you’re sending two FBI agents to visit Assad Khan with the kind of background he has, it does suggest that a combination of speech and religion and ethnicity is enough in this context for the FBI to send agents on this wild goose chase.”
Abbas said that CAIR had “fully anticipated” that the FBI would eventually “perceive routine, common criticisms of foreign countries as a reason to investigate people.”
“If they’re doing it to retired Lieutenant Colonel Asad Khan, who else are they doing it to?” he added.
When asked for comment about the report and to inquire about how FBI policies may differ in responding to different ethnic or religious groups, a spokesperson for the bureau suggested it doesn’t investigate simply for expressing support for one group or another.
“Every day, the FBI engages with members of the public in furtherance of our mission, which is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States,” the spokesperson said.
“We can never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment-protected activity. The FBI is committed to ensuring our activities are conducted with a valid law enforcement or national security purpose and uphold the constitutional rights of all Americans.”
Abbas noted that the rights group has documented an incident in Oklahoma where agents interacted with a Muslim woman and were caught on camera saying, “We’re doing this all day every day.”
And last month, CAIR filed a lawsuit on behalf of two people: an organizer of a routine pro-Palestine protest in California who found himself on the no-fly list and the leader of an organization called American Muslims for Palestine who’s regularly stopped at the border when he crosses it to talk about his travels. (UPI)
