A U.S. Senate panel on Thursday narrowly advanced the nomination of Adeel Mangi to become the nation's first Muslim American federal appeals court judge, after Democrats accused Republican senators of subjecting him to "blatantly Islamophobic lines of questioning and insinuations."
Mangi, who is up for a seat on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was one of 19 of President Joe Biden's nominees for lifetime positions on the federal bench that the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance to the full Democratic-led chamber for its consideration.
Those nominees included three other appellate court candidates, Seth Aframe, nominated to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Nicole Berner, nominated to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Joshua Kolar, nominated to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
But debate on Thursday largely focused on Mangi, a New Jersey resident and partner at the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, who at a Dec. 13 hearing was prodded by Senate Republicans about the Israel-Hamas war and the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.
The panel advanced his nomination on a party-line 11-10 vote, after Senator Dick Durbin, the committee's Democratic chairman, castigated Republicans for what he called a "new low" of attacks against a nominee driven by bias against his religion.
"What is it about Adeel Mangi that attracts such criticism? We know what the starting point is: He would be the first Muslim American to be appointed to serve on the circuit bench," Durbin said.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in a statement called Mangi "an indisputably qualified and experienced attorney" who had been subjected by a group of Republican senators to "vile, unconscionable smears" and "hateful and undignified attacks."
The questions and criticism Mangi faced during both the December hearing and Thursday's related largely to events hosted by Rutgers Law School's Center for Security, Race and Rights. Mangi served on an advisory board to the center from 1999 to 2023.
Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas on Thursday objected to what he said were "anti-Israel, antisemitic" stances taken by that center and said that given Mangi's role with it, he was "troubled by this nominee's views on a number of issues, chief among them terrorism and antisemitism."
Senate Republicans at the December hearing had questioned him about statements made by the center's director, Sahar Aziz, supporting Palestinians and describing Israel as a "settler-colonial state" and a 2021 event the center hosted on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack featuring controversial speakers.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas at the Dec. 13 hearing had pressed Mangi on whether he condemned the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that prompted the war and killed some 1,200 Israelis and if there was "any justification for those atrocities."
Mangi had responded that he was unaware of events held by the center and condemned the attacks.
"The events of Oct. 7 were a horror involving the deaths of innocent civilians," Mangi responded. He said he had "no patience — none — for any attempts to justify or defend those events."
But Cruz on Thursday highlighted nearly $20,000 in donations Mangi and his firm gave to the center as evidence of his support for its "radical political programming."
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