President Biden’s "historic" nominee for a federal appellate court served on the board of a Muslim advocacy group that has blamed Israel for provoking Hamas’s terrorist attack and hosted an event with a convicted terrorist fundraiser on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Adeel Abdullah Mangi, Biden’s nominee for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, served on the advisory board of Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race and Rights from 2019 until earlier this year. During his time on the board, the think tank feted anti-Israel college students and marked the anniversary of the September 11 attacks with an event featuring a terrorist fundraiser. If confirmed, Mangi will be the first Muslim to serve on a federal appellate court, a fact highlighted by Democrats at Mangi’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), who faces federal bribery and foreign agent charges, called the nomination of a Muslim to the prestigious judicial post a "milestone we should have reached many years ago."
But Mangi’s affiliation with a staunchly anti-Israel think tank could prove a roadblock for that "historic" nomination.
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."
Mangi, who left the center’s board in June, downplayed his role with the organization during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. He said he was unaware of the 9/11 anniversary event with Sami al-Arian and that he "unequivocally condemn[s] any terrorism and anybody associated with it."
But some Republicans were incredulous that Mangi would remain on the center’s board after hosting the controversial event.
"How do you sit on an organization that would invite these terrorists, convicted terrorists? You didn’t resign," said Sen. John Kennedy (R., La.).
"I never heard of that event until today," Mangi said.