US President Joe Biden has appointed Pakistani-American lawyer Khizr Khan — also a critic of ex-president Donald Trump and the father of a soldier slain in Baghdad — as the commissioner for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, according to a statement released from the White House.
The announcement is one of four such appointments and nominations, with the White House website saying that it "underscores the President’s commitment to building an administration that looks like America and reflects people of all faiths".
Apart from Khan, Sharon Kleinbaum was appointed the commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, whereas Deborah Lipstadt was nominated for the post of special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism and Rashad Hussain as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.
The Office of International Religious Freedom said it "welcomed" the appointment.
"We look forward to collaborating with them to advance religious freedom for all," it tweeted.
Khan, 71, is a Pakistan-born lawyer who criticized Trump for his disparaging remarks against American Muslims during the 2016 Democratic National Convention (DNC).
Khan’s son, Humayun Khan, was a US Army captain killed in 2004 while serving in Iraq. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery, Virginia, and was posthumously awarded top military medals — Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Khan gave a passionate speech at the 2016 convention, along with his wife, Ghazala, in which he questioned whether Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, had ever read the US Constitution.
He pulled his own copy out of his pocket for emphasis — and said Trump had “sacrificed nothing and no one”.
After that, Trump frequently lashed out at the Khans, which they shrugged off as “proof of his ignorance and arrogance”.
At one point Trump suggested that Ghazala did not speak during the DNC because of her Muslim faith.