White House, Allies Scream 'Islamophobia' to Defend Radical Biden Judicial Pick on Verge of Defeat

On my radio show this week, Sen. Ted Cruz explained why the nomination of Adeel Mangi, President Biden's radical nominee for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, is on the rocks. The opposition to Mangi turned bipartisan this week, with a pair of Democratic members coming out as no's, and more Democrats rumored to be jumping ship. At issue are the nominee's numerous and alarming ties to extreme elements of the hardcore, anti-law enforcement Left -- as well as anti-Semitic Islamists. According to Mangi's defenders, including at the White House and at the New York Times, the critiques are evidence of 'Islamophobia,' because he is a Muslim. Writing at The Federalist, David Harsanyi makes mincemeat of this insipid, identity-fixated smear:

How would Democrats react if a GOP nominee for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench had not only served on an advisory board of an antisemitic organization but also donated thousands of dollars to its cause? What if that nominee also served on the board of an organization founded by a cop killer? And what if that person then conveniently forgot to inform the U.S. Senate about this association? Well, meet Adeel Mangi, Joe Biden’s nominee for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He is guilty of all the above...[Senator] Cruz asked Mangi about Hamas because the nominee not only donated $6,500 to Rutgers’ Law School Center for Security, Race and Rights — an antisemitic academic group — but also sat on its advisory board for years. His firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, donated at least another $13,000.
This is not a group, incidentally, that merely hosts those “critical of Israel" ... [it] often hosts speakers who justify (and, sometimes, materially support) violence against Jewish civilians... The group features former PLO spokesperson Rashid Khalidi and other people in a similar vein. In 2021, when Mangi was on the board, the group sponsored an event commemorating 9/11 by featuring Sami Al-Arian, an academic who pled guilty to lending help to the Islamic Jihad — a U.S.-designated terror group that participated in the Oct. 7 massacre...In 2020, when Mangi was on the board, the group featured speaker Noura Erakat, an antisemitic quack who had previously participated in a workshop with senior Hamas bigwig Ghazi Hamad — a man who has prayed for the “annihilation” and “paralysis” of the “filthy animals” known as Jews.

But that's not all. Mangi also "serves as an advisory board member of the hard-left Alliance of Families for Justice, an organization founded by the late Marxist terrorist Kathy Boudin that has honored Mumia Abu Jamal and five other cop murderers as 'freedom fighters.'" No wonder police groups are hotly opposed to his ascension to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Beyond that, Mangi neglected to disclose some of these troubling connections to the Senate, a supposed oversight for which he was forced to apologize after it was revealed. As for the other examples of radicalism, the nominee claimed that he was unaware of any of it. We are apparently supposed to believe that he donated substantial sums of money to, and sat on boards of, organizations that he really knew little about. So he just missed all of it. What are the chances that is true? Harsanyi observes that if the nominee "was completely unaware of what was going on, then he clearly doesn’t have the requisite awareness to be on a federal bench."

The piece also flays an awful New York Times column 'defending' Mangi by tarring his growing list of opponents as Islamophobes. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell also took apart that Times writer in question "previously speculated that Israel may be engaged in ‘genocide’ in Gaza. She called the Israeli war of self-defense a ‘charnel house of horrors.’ She defended the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement. And she even got mealy-mouthed about the October 7 attacks, saying, ‘[T]wo can play the game of who started it and who is to blame...' What a piece of work. This speech is well done, particularly the Kentucky Senator's destruction of the 'Islamophobia' claim by highlighting Republicans' favorable treatment of a different qualified, non-extremist Muslim Biden judicial appointee:

“Two Muslim Biden nominees with records as different as night and day. Republicans happily supported the nominee who served his country and backed the blue. We have and will continue to oppose the nominee who has repeatedly chosen instead to mingle with supporters of terrorists and cop-killers."

Seems like a pretty reasonable standard, no? No, says a pro-Mangi organization called CAIR. Does that group ring a bell? It should:

CAIR, which was an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism funding case — & whose leader praised Hamas’ October 7 massacre of Jews — says bipartisan opposition to a radical Biden judicial nominee is “Islamophobia.”

Does the nominee want this particular endorsement? pic.twitter.com/xWrBGlmxN0
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 21, 2024