Opinion | The Islamophobic Smear Campaign Dividing Democrats

On paper, President Biden’s nominee to fill a vacancy on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is an archetypical candidate for a federal judgeship. Adeel Abdullah Mangi has a sterling legal education, which he followed with a distinguished career at a high-profile private firm mixing corporate litigation with important pro bono work. He also has a classic American story: He grew up in a poor country dreaming of a career as a lawyer and immigrated to the United States, where he ascended to the heights of his profession.

The candidate has another quality that was especially appealing to Biden, who has made diversifying the federal bench a key priority: Mangi would be the first Muslim American federal appellate judge in the United States.

When Mangi appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in December for a hearing about this lifetime appointment, Republican senators did not ask him about his legal background or judicial philosophy. “Do you condemn the atrocities of Hamas terrorists?” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas demanded of Mangi, a Pakistani American with no connection to Hamas or Palestine other than the fact that he is Muslim, along with 1.8 billion people across the globe.

Such bad faith ambushes are Cruz’s stock in trade, especially since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. So it was hardly a surprise that he and his Republican colleagues spent their allotted time insinuating that Mangi was an antisemite and an apologist not just for Hamas but also for the perpetrators of Sept. 11.

But what is much more worrying is that these tactics could work on some Senate Democrats. Right-wing judicial activists have been running a smear campaign against Mangi, including advertisements aimed at Senate Democrats like Jon Tester of Montana and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who are battling for re-election. The campaigns describe Mangi, with no evidence, as an antisemite and attempt to link him to Hamas and other terror groups. This means that Democrats who run the risk of losing their seats come November may see defending Mangi’s nomination as a potential risk to their chances at re-election. The campaign seems to be working. Over the past few days, CNN and HuffPost have reported that there may not be enough Democratic votes to confirm Mangi.

This is an outrage. The attacks on Mangi are utterly disingenuous. Major Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, have made statements of support for Mangi, whose pro bono legal work has focused in part on fighting for religious liberty and against religious bias across multiple faiths. The American Jewish Committee, which has joined several amicus briefs to the Supreme Court led by Mangi, described him as “a person of integrity, champion of pluralism, and adversary of discrimination against any group.”