A Biden judicial nominee under fire for his work with an anti-Israel think tank has another radical left-wing group on his resume.
Adeel Mangi, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, served on the board of the Legal Aid Society of New York from 2017 to 2021. The organization is best known for representing indigent clients in New York City, but it has also been behind campaigns to defund police and shut down U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In June 2020, the Legal Aid Society urged supporters to "join the movement to #DefundNYPD," and promoted a "March to Defund the NYPD" rally. In 2021, the Legal Aid Society called on the Biden administration to "end immigration detention" and for a "moratorium" on all deportations for one year. The group helped free hundreds of prisoners from Rikers Island because of the coronavirus pandemic, including a career criminal charged with murdering his girlfriend, and another man who was charged with attempted rape 10 days after the Legal Aid Society secured his release.
Mangi’s affiliation with the left-wing group, which has not been previously reported, could create additional headwinds to his confirmation. Mangi, whom Democrats have touted as the first Muslim nominee for a federal appellate court, squeaked through the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote earlier this month, suggesting he may struggle to win the votes of red- and purple-state Democrats up for reelection this year.
Senate Republicans hammered Mangi during his confirmation hearing last month over his advisory board position at the board of the Rutgers Law School Center for Security, Race and Rights. The group hosted an event on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 that featured convicted terrorist financier Sami al-Arian, and more recently asserted that Israel provoked the Hamas attacks on October 7.
Mangi, who now works in private practice, has testified he was unaware of the event, and that he opposes terrorism. But he refused at his confirmation hearing to condemn the center over the event or its anti-Israel rhetoric.
Mangi also serves on the advisory board of the Alliance of Families for Justice, which has lobbied for the parole of black nationalists convicted of killing police officers, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Kathy Boudin, a former member of the terrorist group Weather Underground, was a founding board member of the Alliance of Families for Justice. Boudin, the mother of former San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, was convicted of murdering two New York police officers during the robbery of a Brinks armored truck in 1981.
Mangi’s affiliation with so many left-wing groups make him unfit for a lifetime judicial appointment, according to a former chief counsel for Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"Adeel Mangi belonged to groups that hate Jews, push to defund the police, and want to abolish ICE. But he wants us to believe he was unaware of these extremist views by these groups," said Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project.
"We aren’t buying it, and he isn’t fit to serve on a critically important federal appellate court for the rest of his life," Davis told the Free Beacon.
Mangi’s views on the movement to defund police and ICE and to free convicted cop killers are unclear. He did not respond to requests for comment, and Republican senators did not ask the nominee about his positions with the Legal Aid Society or the Alliance of Families for Justice during the confirmation process.
Mangi has also helped fund some of the controversial groups. He donated between $1,000 and $4,999 to the Legal Aid Society in 2018 and 2021, according to its annual report. He left the organization in November 2021, according to its tax filings.
Legal Aid Society did not respond to a request for comment.