The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) released a digital advertising campaign on Monday, accusing President Joe Biden of nominating an “antisemite” to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The $50,000 campaign launched in Montana, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., against Adeel Abdallah Mangi, who is currently awaiting confirmation from the majority-Democrat Senate to the federal appeals court.
The advertisement focuses on Mangi’s role as a member of an academic advisory board for the Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race and Rights — an institute with radical anti-Israel views that invited convicted terrorists as speakers.
Different versions of the advertisement prompts viewers to either call Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) or Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) to demand they vote against the Pakistan-born lawyer’s upcoming confirmation.
“President Biden wants to remake the courts with the most extreme judges he can find. But antisemite Adeel Mangi might be the worst of all. Mangi served on the advisory board of an extremist organization that teaches students to hate Israel, to hate America, and to support global terrorism,” the ad, titled “Stop Antisemitic Adeel,” states.
“Mangi’s organization blamed America for the September 11 terror attack and has hosted speakers with terrorist connections, including a convicted terrorist. Mangi’s organization even blamed Israel for the Hamas terror attack on October 7. When Mangi was given opportunities to condemn the hateful views, he refused to do so,” the ad continues.
President of JCN Carrie Severino wrote an article for the National Review about Mangi in January, pointing out that the institute “produced several extremist programs, featured speakers with ties to known terrorist organizations, and sponsored lectures brazenly touting antisemitic themes,” during Mangi’s time on the board of advisors.
She wrote:
For example, the Center co-sponsored an event titled “Whose Narrative? 20 Years since September 11” that explored what it called the “exceptionalization of 9/11/2001.” The event’s featured speakers included Sami Al-Arian, who pled guilty to conspiring to provide services to a terrorist organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hatem Bazian, one of the co-founders of Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that has publicly called for an intifada in the United States.
It doesn’t end there. In 2020, the Center held an event titled “White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America.” In 2021, it issued a “Resource Guide on Palestine” that listed a host of anti-Israel organizations, several of which have been forums for antisemitism. In 2022, the Center teamed up with one such group, Palestine Legal, for a program designed to help anti-Israel college students strategize.
While Mangi left the board earlier last year, the Center continues to “sponsor hateful events,” and has seemingly attempted to justify the actions of Hamas against Israel after the horrific Oct. 7 terror attacks, Severino wrote.
Republican Senators grilled Mangi at confirmation hearing in December about his role at the institute, although he did his best to evade questions. He also declined to condemn the radical views of the center or its leader, no matter how often he was asked.
“When asked about his affiliation with the Center during his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Mangi downplayed his involvement, insisting that he only gave advice on academic research for the Center and was not aware of the vile antisemitic content of its programs,” Severino noted. “Yet Mangi’s firm, Patterson Belknap, is one of the Center’s few ‘Law Fellow Sponsors,’ and Mangi appears to have been the firm’s only employee on the board of advisors.”
Mangi would be the first Muslim appellate judge, if confirmed — a lifetime appointment. Instead of asking questions, Democrats have accused Republicans of “blatantly Islamophobic lines of questioning and insinuations.”