Inspired by Trump, felon jumps into Nevada GOP congressional primary

Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

After being sentenced to two years in prison for wire fraud and finding himself on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, Republican Bobby Khan isn’t shy about his history.

A video on his new congressional campaign website shows him superimposed over what appears to be a green-screened jail cell. One of his flyers is in the style of a classic Western “wanted” poster, except this time he’s wanted to oust U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., in the 1st Congressional District.

“I would never in my wildest dreams think I was ever going to run for office. It wasn’t until I witnessed how bad everything is that I decided to run,” Khan said. “It was my past that led me to this. So why would I shy away from my past?”

Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign continually slammed President Donald Trump for being a felon, but her time as a prosecutor wasn’t enough to pick up a single swing state. It’s a changing world, Khan said, where “people realize that their system is broken.”

The “justice system is like walking into a ring with Mike Tyson in his prime, blindfolded and your hands tied behind your back,” he said. “When the average American gets a knock on the door, they crumble. They don’t know how to deal with it.”

Before his most recent run-in with the federal government, Khan owned a luxury car dealership in New Jersey, even having cast members from “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” as clients. That high-profile work, along with the fact that he beat the federal government in court in his 20s, made him a target, Khan said.

In 2014, Khan was charged with wire fraud for obtaining loans “for cars that he never delivered, but for which the purchaser was still responsible,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey. He also got loans for cars that the dealership didn’t have the title for, according to the office.

More than 75 people filed complaints about Khan’s work at the dealership, the office found. Khan admitted to exposing “the victim bank to a potential loss of at least $550,000,” officials said in a 2022 news release.

Khan told Fox News in 2019 that he left the country with his wife and children before he was indicted as a result of death threats stemming from his business deals.

After years as a fugitive, Khan surrendered himself in 2020. He said he was in custody without bail for eight months, then had almost three years of home confinement before serving eight months in prison. Now a Nevada resident, he’s running for Congress on supervised release.

If the candidate wanted to meet with Trump, Khan said he would have to ask whether he could, due to their shared status as felons.

“People thought I was nuts (about running for office) … ‘You just endured 10 years of negative headlines and fighting the government, and now you want to go do more?’ ” Khan said. “If I could save a handful of people’s lives from ever going through what I went through and my wife and kids went through, I did my part.”

While he said people have been receptive to his story — noting one woman at an event confided in him that her son had also been charged with a crime — Khan is still a relatively new figure.

It was Trump who laid the groundwork, writing on social media before he was sentenced in his New York hush money case that “corrupt Democrat” judges and prosecutors had conspired against him “at levels of injustice never seen before.”

“Corrupt judges, or judges so blinded by their hatred of me and my political ideology to ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,’ are making a mockery of the United States Judicial System, and the World is watching in disgust,” Trump wrote on social media.

Last year, only a third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents had a favorable view of the Department of Justice, according to Pew Research.

Whether someone believes Trump’s claims of Democratic weaponization of the DOJ is also highly dependent on which party they identify with. Three-quarters of Republicans agree with the president, compared with 9% of Democrats, according to Elon University.

Chuck Muth, a local conservative activist, thinks Khan will have a Republican base that’s more open-minded, if not sympathetic, to his story than they would have been before Trump’s court cases.

“He believes that he was wronged by the Department of Justice back during the Obama administration and is fighting back. He’s got explanations,” Muth said. Khan “just has to make sure it’s completely clear and let the voters decide.”

Khan said he has taken “full responsibility” for the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to the bank he got loans from, but contends this should have been a civil matter instead of a criminal one. After his first case that he fought off, “people in power assume the worst without looking at the facts,” he wrote.

He also pointed to Carvana, which, in January of this year, reached a $1.5 million settlement with the Connecticut attorney general for “extended delays in title and registration documents, delayed payments to sellers, and deceptive representations of car conditions.”

Khan said he’s not claiming to be a victim, but that “justice is not equal.”

“Luckily I had the resources to fight back,” he said. “Unfortunately (there are) 80 million Americans with criminal records and millions of them do not.”

Muth also highlighted Nevada’s history with unconventional candidates.

Dennis Hof, who owned multiple brothels throughout Nevada, won an Assembly race in 2018 despite dying at his famed “Love Ranch” a month before.

“Bobby’s chances may have been tougher in another state, but I think in Nevada, he’s going to get a fair hearing and he’s going to get a fair shake,” Muth said.

Dr. Howell Shaw, founder of Henderson Conservatives and the founding pastor at a small local church community, hosted Khan at an Italian restaurant for the Republican-aligned group’s July meeting.

Shaw believes that, before Trump, people would dismiss “lawfare,” an increasingly common term describing the weaponization of the legal system against someone, as a conspiracy theory. But he now contends it’s a worthwhile issue.

“I do hope that we’re able to clear our judiciary and put judges in and lawyers in that are there to seek the truth and not to make political statements or do political activism,” said Shaw, who earlier described Khan’s story as “hope-filled.”

And Khan connects his time behind bars to the policies he’s running on. He believes many of the rehabilitative programs inside prisons aren’t adequate, saying that he was told to sign a paper once a month stating he took classes he never attended.

Khan instead wants to give corporations a tax credit to build up manufacturing and then hire people currently in prison for nonviolent crimes.

“Instead of those people sitting in prison and rotting away, what this does is it gives them an opportunity to now go work and earn a minimum wage,” Khan said. “When they leave prison, their rights are restored … so you can get a job anywhere you want.”

In Nevada prisons, people can earn as little as $0.35 an hour working for Silver State Industries, according to data provided to the state Legislature in 2023.

Leaving prison with little money drives recidivism, Khan said. Around a quarter of Nevada’s inmates are back behind bars within three years of being released, according to the Nevada Department of Corrections.

“I release you from prison today, and I tell you, ‘You got to go out there and you got to get a job.’ But you apply everywhere and you can’t get a job. So what happens?” he asked. “You’re going to have to go out there and feed your kids … so maybe you steal $20 or you broke into some place, and then you’re right back in there again.”

He’s also thrown typical Republican positions into his platform — pushing for smaller government, safer neighborhoods and a stronger border — but wants to end asset forfeiture prior to a conviction as well as remove taxes on gambling winnings and veteran income.

“We have way too many laws on the books because all we’re trying to do is capture everybody as a gotcha,” he said. “And if they can go after Donald Trump, who’s a billionaire ex-president, and charge him … you and I don’t stand a chance.”

At least four other Republicans are running in the congressional district, including state Sen. Carrie Buck and former assemblymember Jim Marchant.

[email protected] / 702-990-8923 / @Kyle_Chouinard