As Donald Trump continues his ugly attacks on Gold Star parents Khizr and Ghazala Khan, no less than Hillary Clinton wondered how low Trump could go. Well, a top Trump surrogate may have hit as far below the belt as you can get. He actually suggested that Khizr Khan is a double agent for al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.
New Hampshire state representative Al Baldasaro, the co-chairman of Trump’s veterans coalition, is best known for suggesting that Hillary be shot by firing squad–a bit of diarrhea of the mouth that triggered a Secret Service investigation. Nonetheless, the Trump campaign is still “grateful” to have him as a surrogate.
Well, on Monday, Baldasaro elbowed his way back into the news with this tweet attacking Khizr for daring to ream Trump at the Democratic National Convention.
Mr Khan, shame on you & #CrookedHillary for not being truthful to all in attacks at @realDonaldTrump @CNN @FoxNews https://t.co/Nrt7CEU3ua
— Rep Al Baldasaro (@Al_Baldasaro) August 1, 2016
The link goes to a blog post by Walid Shoebat, a Muslim-turned Catholic who is frequently trotted out by the right as an “expert” on the dangers of Islam. He and his son, Ted–who is known for making statements that make him sound no different from ISIS–claim that Khizr is a closet jihadist due to his academic work on Islamic law, including a 1983 article on Islamic law that appeared in the Houston Journal of International Law. The Shoebats also flagged Khizr’s current work on immigration law, suggesting that he is actually plotting to bring more Muslims into this country. On that basis, they claim that Khizr is an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.
There’s only one problem–Shoebat has serious credibility issues. He laims to have been a fanatical PLO terrorist, but CNN and The Jerusalem Post have exposed him as a fraudster. Nonetheless, the fringe still loves him. He claims that Hillary adviser Huma Abedin is a Brotherhood plant–a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.
Additionally, the original article contained an ugly smear against Khizr and Ghazala’s son, Captain Humayun Khan. It suggested that Captain Khan was a double agent for al-Qaeda, who was killed before “his Islamist mission was accomplished.” So these loons wanted you to believe that a man who got his men to safety when he saw what looked like a car bomber driving toward them was actually working for bin Laden?
When reached by Think Progress, Baldasaro said that he too believes Khizr is a Muslim Brotherhood agent with “long ties to the Clinton and Obama campaign.” Never mind that the Khans had no links whatsoever to either the White House or the Clintons before the convention.
Baldasaro tweeted the article a number of times on Monday, but began having concerns about the way it smeared Captain Khan. Later on Monday, that claim was deleted. However, the article still implies that Captain Khan was one of a number of “Muslim martyrs” who joined our military in order to secretly further the Islamist cause.
By Monday afternoon, it looked like the well-deserved reaming Baldasaro was taking on Twitter was getting to him.
After reading info on Walid Shoebat who has been on national television, I am not sure about his credibility. https://t.co/TZ1k5hJQah
— Rep Al Baldasaro (@Al_Baldasaro) August 1, 2016
Those doubts weren’t strong enough to delete the earlier tweets, or Baldasaro’s claims that Khizr was a Muslim Brotherhood agent.
There was no such equivocation from another major Trump surrogate, Roger Stone. A longtime friend of Trump’s who now runs a pro-Trump super PAC, Stone joined Baldasaro in tweeting Shoebat’s smear on the Khans.
https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/759941783098761216
https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/759945300991680512
https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/760228316578213888
Unlike Baldasaro, however, Stone isn’t backing down one inch. In fact, he enjoys the attention.
https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/759953874904113152
So there you have it. Two of Trump’s top surrogates think smearing a Gold Star father is perfectly acceptable. Says a lot about the company Trump keeps, as well as Trump himself, doesn’t it?
