Muslim Circuit Pick’s Firm Defends Him as Key Democrats Oppose

Law firm colleagues of President Joe Biden’s historic Muslim appellate nominee are coming to Adeel Mangi’s defense as opposition from three Senate Democrats jeopardizes his chances of confirmation.

In a letter to Nevada’s two Democratic senators, Eugene Gelernter of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP addresses their decision to oppose Mangi’s confirmation based on the New York litigator’s membership on the advisory board of a criminal justice reform group conservatives have characterized as anti-police.

“The Advisory Board does nothing at all. Our membership is purely nominal,” Gelernter says of both their membership on the Alliance of Families for Justice’s advisory board.

Republicans have pointed to the organization’s ties with Kathy Boudin, who was convicted of felony murder for her role in a Brink’s armored truck robbery in New York that led to the deaths of two police officers in 1981.

Gelernter said in his April 4 letter to Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen that he and Mangi joined the board to consult on pro bono litigation, “but no such litigations have resulted” and that “it is unfair to hold Mr. Mangi responsible for anything the AFJ does or does not do.”

Mangi has defended himself against what he described as “baseless accusations” that he’s anti-law enforcement. He’s said that a pro bono case, on behalf of a prison inmate who was allegedly killed by prison guards, led to his invitation to join the advisory board. “Any suggestion that I have sympathy for attacks on law enforcement is shocking and false,” Mangi said in a March letter.

The GOP-led campaign against Mangi’s nomination initially focused on his prior membership on the advisory board of the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers Law School, which held a controversial event commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in 2021. Conservatives also allege the center has platformed anti-Israel and antisemitic speech.

“Mr. Mangi is not qualified to be a federal judge because he supports organizations that celebrate people who kill law enforcement officers. He supports organizations that hate Americans, and he supports organizations that hate Jews,” Senate Judiciary Committee member John Kennedy (R-La.) said during floor remarks on March 21.

Gregory Diskant, who’s of counsel at Patterson Belknap and recruited Mangi to the firm 25 years ago, wrote in a March 29 piece in The Atlantic that the conservative treatment of Mangi’s nomination to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is similar to the questions Justice Thurgood Marshall received from Southern senators during his confirmation hearing.

“Mangi has faced similar hateful bigotry, now from Republican senators who seem to believe (or at least cater to those who do) that any Muslim is a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer,” Diskant wrote.

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP has also been subject to scrutiny, with Senate Judiciary Republicans seeking out information on the firm’s donations to the Center for Security, Race and Rights, which hosts a Law Fellows Program.

The White House has called efforts against Mangi’s confirmation a “cruel, Islamophobic, smear campaign.”

But opposition from Nevada’s Democrats and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), who says he’ll oppose any of Biden’s judicial nominees who lack Republican votes, is enough to sink the bid if no GOP members support Mangi.