Judicial group targets 'antisemite' Biden nominee with alleged ties to terrorist sympathizers

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The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a conservative judicial advocacy organization based in Virginia, is rolling out a digital ad campaign against one of President Biden's controversial nominees who has alleged ties to 9/11 hijacker sympathizers.

The advertising campaign from JCN – slated to run in Pennsylvania, Montana and Washington, D.C. – consists of an initial buy of $50,000 and specifically targets Adeel Abdullah Mangi, who was recently nominated by Biden to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The ads appearing in Pennsylvania and Montana urge Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Bob Casey, D-Pa., to vote "no" on Mangi's nomination to a lifetime appointment on the federal court and accuse the judicial nominee of being an "antisemite" who is far too "extreme."

"President Biden wants to remake the courts with the most extreme judges he can find," the narrator states in the ad. "But antisemite Adeel Mangi might be the worst of all."

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The advertising campaign from JCN specifically targets Adeel Abdullah Mangi, who was recently nominated by Biden to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. (JCN/Getty Images)

The ad goes on to highlight Mangi's tenure as a member of the board of advisers for the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers Law School from 2019 to 2023.

JCN said the "extremist organization" Mangi was affiliated with "teaches students to hate Israel, to hate America, and to support global terrorism."

"Mangi's organization blamed America for the Sept. 11 terror attacks and has hosted speakers with terrorist connections, including a convicted terrorist," the narrator continued. "Mangi's organization even blamed Israel for the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7. When Mangi was given opportunities to condemn these hateful views, he refused to do so."

JCN president Carrie Severino blasted Mangi's ties to the "radical, antisemitic group" in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"It is bad enough that President Biden has appointed activist judges who can’t identify major constitutional provisions and are hostile to law enforcement. But now Biden wants to give a life-tenure judicial position to a lawyer with ties to a radical, antisemitic group that blames the United States for 9/11 and teaches students to hate Israel and America," she said.

"In a time when antisemitism is on the rise, how can alleged moderates like Sens. Jon Tester and Bob Casey rubber stamp this kind of nominee for life tenure? There is no place on the Third Circuit for this disdain of our nation’s principles and the rule of law," Severino added. "Senate Democrats should be ashamed of their support for Adeel Mangi and President Biden should promptly withdraw his nomination."

Since being nominated, Mangi has garnered significant criticism from GOP lawmakers for his personal and financial affiliation with the university research center that has been accused of giving a platform to "terrorist sympathizers."

Adeel Abdullah Mangi speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13, 2023. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans announced they are investigating the funding of the center and insisted its "platforming of radical ideologues" was "troublesome."

"The work of the Center, its promotion of terrorist sympathizers, and its platforming of radical ideologues is troubling to us as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee," Republicans on the committee said in a joint statement.

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The center, according to members of the committee, co-sponsored an event titled "Whose Narrative? 20 Years since September 11, 2001" on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Additionally, members of the committee noted that the center hosted an event titled "Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine" three days after the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas militants. Center faculty affiliate Dr. Lara Sheehi opened the talk by saying, "Zionist settler colonialism is a structure that is the provocation," according to the committee.

The center also held a December 2023 event titled "The West, Israel and Settler Colonization of Palestine" with Professor Joseph Massad, who lauded the Oct. 7 massacre in "jubilant" terms in an article that was published one day after Hamas invaded Israel.

Massad wrote at the time, "No less awesome were the scenes witnessed by millions of jubilant Arabs who spent the day watching the news, of Palestinian fighters from Gaza breaking through Israel’s prison fence or gliding over it by air.… No less striking was the capture of some of Israel’s colonial soldiers and officers in their underwear while sleeping."

Mangi's nomination and affiliation with the center has also raised concerns from 10 House Republicans who represent districts over which the Third Circuit Court of Appeals presides.

Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., and nine of his colleagues from Pennsylvania and New Jersey raised "grave concerns" over Mangi's nomination in a letter to Biden last month.

The center has a "deep history of amplifying antisemitic speech, terrorist propaganda, and anti-American rhetoric," the lawmakers said in the letter.

"During his tenure as a board member, the Center supported efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel by pushing for the boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement and calling for resistance in Palestine," they wrote. "In 2021, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey stated that one of the Center’s events sought to ‘delegitimize Israel and to push their antisemitic agenda into a mainstream discourse.’ The Jewish News Center, among other organizations, labeled a 2021 center event as ‘pro-Hamas’ and a ‘terrorist-whitewashing webinar.’"

Mangi, a New Jersey resident and partner at the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, has been praised by Democrats for possibly being the nation’s first Muslim American federal appellate judge. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Like their Senate colleagues, the GOP House lawmakers also said the center has a record of sympathizing with radical terrorist organizations and pointed to the 9/11 anniversary event it hosted

The Republicans informed the president that Sami Al-Arian, a convicted felon who provided support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), was a featured speaker. At the event, Al-Arian blamed the 9/11 attack on the U.S. and its support for Israel.

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"As your Administration is aware, PIJ is a foreign terrorist organization and was involved in the atrocities committed against Israel on October 7, 2023," they wrote.

The lawmakers went on to argue that "while Mr. Mangi’s affiliation and financial support for the Center is cause for alarm, we also find it deeply troubling that he has failed to denounce the Center and its radical ideology."

"On numerous occasions in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mangi was given ample opportunity to denounce examples of antisemitic rhetoric espoused by the Center," they said. "He failed to do so in his written responses and oral testimony to the committee every single time."

Mangi advanced out of the committee on an 11-10 party-line vote. His nomination now awaits a vote by the full Senate.

Last month, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital that "President Biden is deeply proud" to have nominated Mangi, calling him "an indisputably qualified and experienced attorney who has lived the American dream and is devoted to our Constitution and the rule of law."

He called the Republicans' criticisms "vile, unconscionable smears," noting that they have "been discredited by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, among many others."

Last month, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital that "President Biden is deeply proud" to have nominated Mangi. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Bates also accused the GOP lawmakers of applying a "religious litmus test," targeting Mangi for his Muslim faith – which, he noted, the Constitution "forbids."

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Mangi, a New Jersey resident and partner at the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, has been praised by Democrats for possibly being the nation’s first Muslim American federal appellate judge.

"Mangi is a standout figure in New Jersey’s legal landscape. It speaks volumes that his exceptional legal abilities are only exceeded by his character and unwavering commitment to fairness in the administration of justice," Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said in a statement last month.

The Coalition for Jewish Values, the Zionist Organization of America, Americans Against Antisemitism and others have opposed Mangi's nomination.

Fox News' Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.