Senate Democrats have reportedly warned the White House that a controversial judicial nominee associated with radical left-wing groups does not have enough votes to secure confirmation.
President Joe Biden nominated Adeel Mangi to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in November. If confirmed by the Senate, Mangi would be the first Muslim American to serve on a federal appeals court. Biden's Democratic allies in the Senate, however, have told the president in private that there is likely not enough support for Mangi in the body, with even Democrats defecting, CNN reported.
Republicans in the Senate have slammed the nominee for his associations with left-wing groups that have pushed for radical policies or hosted questionable events.
As the Washington Free Beacon reported in January, Mangi served on the board of the Legal Aid Society, which in June 2020 advocated for defunding the New York City Police Department. He also served on an advisory board, which met once per year, for the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers Law School. That think tank hosted an event on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 with an activist who helped fund the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group.
"As the Anti-Defamation League made clear, the debunked rightwing smear campaign against Mr. Mangi is ‘profoundly wrong,’" White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told CNN. "Mr. Mangi was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the White House continues to fight for his confirmation and to repudiate the vicious hate and bigotry with which he has been targeted because of his Muslim faith."
Bates referenced a statement from the Anti-Defamation League, which said Republican scrutiny over Mangi's involvement with the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee appeared "to have been motivated by bias towards his religion."
During the December hearing, Mangi said he had not heard of the 9/11 anniversary event. There, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) asked him if he condemned the atrocities of Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attacks.
"The events of Oct. 7 were a horror involving the deaths of innocent civilians," Mangi replied, adding that he had "no patience, none, for any attempts to justify or defend those events."