Biden Court Pick Adeel Mangi Refutes 'Shocking And False" Attacks On Him

WASHINGTON — In an unusual move for a pending federal judicial nominee, President Joe Biden’s court pick Adeel Mangi is directly pushing back on the misleading and ugly claims that some Republicans, and one Democrat, have made about his record and his character.

In a new letter obtained by HuffPost, Mangi wrote to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Thursday to address “certain misstatements” about his work with a nonprofit, Alliance for Families of Justice, and “certain baseless accusations” about his views about law enforcement.

Republicans have been waging a months-long smear campaign against Mangi, who, if confirmed, would be the nation’s first Muslim U.S. appeals court judge. He’s currently a nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, and if confirmed, he’d tilt that court’s ideological balance to be evenly divided between GOP-appointed and Democrat-appointed judges — certainly one reason why Republicans don’t want him confirmed.

But their attacks on Mangi, a 23-year civil litigator based in New Jersey, have been as grossly Islamophobicas they have been unfounded. Republicans have tried to cast him as an antisemitic terrorist sympathizer , and more recently, are accusing him of associating himself with cop-killers .

None of that is true. But the anti-law enforcement accusations were enough to spook Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) into announcing her opposition to Mangi this week.

In his letter, Mangi said he wasn’t asked about his work with AFJ in his Senate confirmation hearing in December, so he hasn’t had a chance to address the allegations being made about this group or his views on law enforcement. Mangi is on the advisory board for AFJ, a New York nonprofit that provides counseling and legal