by Frank Holmes, reporter
President Joe Biden seems intent on going through a rare, stunning, and embarrassing loss in the Democrat-controlled Senate — and humiliating his nominee. And his reasons may show us just how vulnerable Biden’s 2024 reelection chances really are.
Biden has nominated a radical attorney, with multiple alleged ties to Islamic terrorism, to become a federal judge.
Biden named Adeel Mangi — a partner in the white shoe law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler — to become the first Muslim-American judge on an appellate court.
The bad news is, Mangi has been heavily involved in two far-Left groups that seem to think Islamic terrorists are heroes. In fact, the groups back terrorists whether they are foreign-born Islamic fundamentalists, or American-born socialists.
The first group Mangi reportedly affiliated himself with — the Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race, and Rights — thought the best speaker for a conference on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 would be someone tied to terrorism. They invited Sami Al-Arian, a former Florida professor who pled guilty to providing material support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and got sentenced to 57 months in jail in 2006. The government deported al-Arian to Turkey in 2015.
The second radical group, which is called the Alliance of Families for Justice, was founded by a domestic terrorist: the late ‘60s radical Kathy Boudin. The Weather Underground member pled guilty to murder in the 1981 Brink’s robbery that left two officers dead. In 2021, the alliance pressed for the release of six cop killers. AFJ called the killers, who belonged to either the Black Panthers or Black Liberation Army, “freedom fighters.”
Mangi claimed he knew nothing about their affiliations and wanted nothing to do with those unsavory comments. But no one in Washington is buying it.
“Mangi is either dishonest or stunningly oblivious,” said an editorial at the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon. “Either quality is disqualifying for a would-be federal judge.”
The police, who could be on the other end of a barrel from Mangi’s “freedom fighters,” don’t believe his pleas of ignorance, either.
A total of 17 difference police and law enforcement groups, from New Jersey to Hawaii, have written letters officially urging senators to vote against Mangi.
Adeel Mangi has been exposed for extremely troubling ties to antisemitic and anti-police groups.
Senators Cortez Masto and Manchin have already said they will not vote for Mangi.
When is President Biden finally going to withdraw his nomination? pic.twitter.com/PEbOROj9fC https://t.co/FbbRqjYqvY
— Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) March 25, 2024
No Republicans seem to back Mangi—even those usually willing to cross the aisle in an act of uniparty “bipartisanship” with the other side.
That’s not necessarily damning. Democrats could prevail without a Republican vote—or could ask Vice President Kamala Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote.
The real problem for the Biden administration is that Democrats are also starting to bail on the terror-tied lawyer.
Last Wednesday, Nevada’s Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen gave Mangi the thumbs-down.
“Given the concerns I’ve heard from law enforcement in Nevada, I am not planning to vote to confirm this nominee,” said Rosen.
Rosen is actually the third Democrat to cut ties with Mangi. Rosen’s fellow Nevada Democrat, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, has also said she opposes Mangi, especially due to his connection with the alliance.
And Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has said he won’t support any nominee who doesn’t have bipartisan support.
That makes it obvious Mangi is going to go down in flames if his nomination comes to the Senate floor.
Traditionally, presidents of both parties pull the nomination at this point—but so far, the Biden administration remains 100 percent behind him.
“The president was very proud to nominate” the radical terror lawyer, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
As members of the president’s own party back away from Mangi, KJP claimed Mangi’s “extraordinary qualifications and integrity are gaining him new backing each day.”
Karine Jean-Pierre says Biden still backs his far-left judicial nominee Adeel Mangi, who has supported organizations that celebrate cop killers and hate Jews — and faces bipartisan opposition in the Senate pic.twitter.com/vMqgm76OjE
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 1, 2024
To make Biden’s decision more perplexing, it’s unheard of for the White House to lose a vote on a judicial nominee. “The last time somebody actually lost the floor vote was during the Clinton administration—a district judge from Missouri,” said Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution.
So, why hasn’t Biden pulled Mangi from an obvious train wreck?
Because Biden is focused on another vote: the Muslim vote in the swing state of Michigan, which backed Donald Trump in 2016. Biden’s rhetorical support for Israel has ticked off the critical voting bloc, resulting in a huge protest vote for “uncommitted.”
Biden tried to convince Israel to agree to a ceasefire, but the Israeli public is hungry for the war to continue—and Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t interested in doing Joe Biden any favors.
The Washington Free Beacon said Mangi’s apparent failure to win Senate confirmation “should be a wake-up call to all ambitious Leftists standing by with their hands clasped as universities turn into Maoist training camps.”
But it should also be a signal of just how weak the Biden campaign is—and knows it is—in a must-win state.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”