On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing for Adeel Abdullah Mangi, nominated to serve on the Third Circuit. The nomination of Manji might be one of the Biden Administration's most tone-deaf yet. As The Washington Free Beacon reported, Mangi previously served on the advisory board of a think tank at Rutger's University known for its anti-Israel activity:
In 2021, the Center for Security, Race and Rights hosted an event on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that featured Sami al-Arian, a former professor who helped fund the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It promoted an event, "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS): Globalized Palestinian Resistance to Israel’s Settler Colonialism and Apartheid," with Hatem Bazian, the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel group that has pushed pro-Hamas rhetoric.
Last year, the center held an event with the activist group Palestine Legal to provide "legal strategy" to anti-Israel college students. An official from Palestine Legal has a history of praising Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The center has maintained its anti-Israel views in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack. The think tank said that to condemn Hamas was to "ignore over 75 years of colonial violence and the horrific consequences born out of these decades of oppression and attempted erasure."
Oddly, Mangi claimed to be totally unaware of the rhetoric and programming promoted by the organization. This is unacceptable. At the very least, anyone who serves on the federal bench should be extremely careful with what organizations he or she associates themself with.
During questioning by Senators Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton, Mangi was unable to answer simple questions about the state of Israel.
Senator @HawleyMO just had a TENSE exchange with Biden judicial nominee Adeel Abdullah Mangi.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 13, 2023
Why is it so hard for this Biden nominee to disavow this statement calling Israel a "violent colonial state?"
At one point (2:50) you can hear a Democrat being audibly distressed about… pic.twitter.com/MoMZeCdsgU
I asked President Biden’s judicial nominee today, Adeel Mangi, whether Jews are “colonial settlers” in Israel. He refused to answer the question.
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) December 13, 2023
It’s unacceptable this is the type of judge the Biden administration nominates. pic.twitter.com/N3hkVDuEnE
As Republican Leader Mitch McConnell noted in a speech from the Senate floor:
Over the past three years, our colleagues on the committee have met and considered an alarming parade of nominees whose conduct or lack of legal qualifications made them so wildly unfit for confirmation that they had to be withdrawn. . .
American Jews are facing an historic wave of anti-Semitic hate. And this wave is emanating from campus organizations across the country like the one Mr. Mangi guided and supported at Rutgers.
Is the Biden Administration really asking the Senate to give life tenure on the court of appeals to a nominee with an extensive record of condoning terrorist propaganda?
The Senate must reject the nomination of Adeel Abdullah Mangi to the Third Circuit—the latest in a long string of radical Biden judicial nominees.