Adeel Mangi, a North Jersey attorney and President Joe Biden’s nominee to a seat on the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals, was approved today by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote – but only after another fraught committee meeting that spiraled into a debate on antisemitism and the war in Gaza.
A Pakistani immigrant who would be the first Muslim to ever serve on a federal appeals court if confirmed, Mangi first came before the Judiciary Committee in December. At that hearing, Republican senators interrogated Mangi on his role at a Rutgers University center that once hosted a controversial event on 9/11, a line of attack they brought up once again today.
“He was director of a center that was basically a mouthpiece for Hamas,” Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said; Mangi was not the center’s director, but rather an academic advisory board member. “Did he not have concerns about Jewish students? We’ve seen Jewish students barricaded in libraries after October 7, fearing for their lives. Did he not think that a center which actively promotes genocidal rhetoric might have some effect on the students he was supposed to be helping?”
At the December hearing, Mangi insisted that his role at the center was very limited, and that he unequivocally condemns any terrorist acts. He had no similar ability to defend himself at today’s meeting, but Democratic senators took up the mantle for him.
“To me, this smacks of an era I thought was passed, which is McCarthyism; guilt by association,” Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) said. “Clearly, as the record states, this person condemns all the things that we share and condemn. His career speaks to the values we hold dear.”
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, specifically connected Republicans’ attacks to Mangi’s identity as a Muslim.
“What happened in the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 13, 2023 to this nominee is a new low in this committee,” Durbin said. “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… And we know because of that, he is a target.”
Durbin also noted that the Anti-Defamation League, a top Jewish advocacy group, released a statement earlier this month criticizing Republicans’ “inappropriate and prejudicial treatment” of Mangi and saying that their questions “appear[ed] to have been motivated by bias towards his religion.”
Mangi’s nomination was ultimately approved on an 11-10 vote, with every committee Democrat voting for it and every Republican opposing it. He’ll likely head to the full Senate floor for confirmation sometime in the next several months; unless multiple Democrats side with Republicans against him, his nomination should be able to pass without issue.
If he’s confirmed, Mangi will succeed retired Judge Joseph Greenaway, a Barack Obama nominee who served on the Circuit Court bench for 13 years (and the District Court bench for another 14 years before that). Greenaway departed the bench in June of last year, and Biden nominated Mangi to take his place in November.
Mangi is Biden’s 11th federal judicial nominee from New Jersey, and his first for an appellate court seat. Assuming Mangi and District Court nominee Edward Kiel are both confirmed, Biden will have nominated more than half of New Jersey’s 21 total federal judges on the District and Circuit Courts.
In a statement released after today’s committee vote, Booker reiterated his belief that Mangi would make an excellent judge.
“Mangi is a standout figure in New Jersey’s legal landscape,” Booker said. “It speaks volumes that his exceptional legal abilities are only exceeded by his character and unwavering commitment to fairness in the administration of justice. I am grateful that the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to advance his nomination to the full Senate and I look forward to his confirmation to serve on the Third Circuit as the nation’s first Muslim-American federal appellate judge.”