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UPDATE: New smear campaign puts first Muslim appellate nominee in jeopardy Judd Legum

Published

4 months ago

April 1, 2024

Democratic Nevada senators Jacky Rosen (L) and Catherine Cortez Masto (R) on December 8, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Republicans first attempted to sink the nomination of Adeel Mangi, who would be the first Muslim American to serve on a federal appellate court, on allegations that he was an anti-semitic terrorist sympathizer. During Mangi’s December 13, 2023 confirmation hearing, Republican Senators asked Mangi if he “celebrated 9/11” or “condemned the atrocities of Hamas terrorists.”

The pretext for these attacks was Mangi’s role as an advisory board member for the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights, which is part of Rutgers Law School, from 2019 to 2023. The Center held an event on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, which included several controversial speakers, including one, Sami Al-Arian, an activist who pled guilty to providing support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But Mangi did not attend the event, had no involvement in the planning, and was not even aware that it occurred. His role on the advisory board involved recommending topics for academic research and “did not extend to or include providing advice or approval on the selection of speakers, speaker events, lectures, or workshops.”

This attenuated attack fell flat when major Jewish groups — including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the National Council of Jewish Women — defended Mangi and condemned the Islamophobic smear campaign. Mangi frequently volunteered his time representing cross-faith groups, including Jewish groups, on important legal issues.

So Mangi’s opponents went back to the drawing board. The new line of attack was that Mangi was anti-police, another attempt to vilify Mangi based on an anti-Muslim trope. This was not an issue that Mangi was asked about during his confirmation hearing.

The new smear sought to exploit Mangi’s position as an advisory board member to the Alliance of Families for Justice (AFJ), a group that advocates for the rights of incarcerated people and their families. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee now claim his role with AFJ means he has “ties to cop killers.”

Mangi’s substantive work with AFJ is laudable. He was connected with the group when “he represented the family of Karl Taylor, an incarcerated man who was killed by corrections officers.” After a trial, Mangi negotiated an out-of-court settlement for the family of Taylor. It was “the largest settlement in New York state’s history for the death of an incarcerated person” and also included substantive reforms to improve the safety at the prison where Taylor died.

After the Taylor settlement, Mangi was invited to join AFJ’s advisory board, which never met. Mangi’s opponents now claim he is anti-police because AFJ has a fellowship named after Kathy Boudin, a former member of the radical group Weather Underground “who served time in prison for her role in a 1981 robbery that left two police officers dead.” Left out of the narrative was the fact Boudin spent 22 years in prison and expressed remorse for her role in the incident, calling it “flawed and wrong.” Boudin, who died in 2022, spent much of the rest of her life advocating for incarcerated people. AFJ’s fellowship was named after her based on that advocacy, not to celebrate her criminal past. In any event, Mangi had nothing to do with the fellowship or the decision to name it after Boudin.

The other issue was AFJ’s advocacy for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther who was convicted of killing a police officer in 1981. But AFJ called for the release of Abu-Jamal and others in 2021 because he contracted COVID, has congenital heart disease, and was at risk of dying in prison. But again, Mangi had nothing to do with it. Since Mangi joined, the AFJ advisory board has never even met.

Mangi recently sent a letter last month to Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), who supports Mangi’s nomination, to correct the record about his affiliation with AFJ. “Crimes against law enforcement officers are horrific and indefensible,” Mangi wrote. “I have not represented or otherwise provided legal services to any individual convicted of killing a law enforcement officer. I condemn any violence against law enforcement officers without equivocation.”

Merits aside, this newest attack against Mangi appears to be working.

Nevada Democrats oppose Mangi, severely imperiling his nomination

The Democratic caucus has a 51-49 majority in the Senate, and judicial nominees cannot be filibustered. So if the caucus stays together, Mangi will be confirmed. But that is not happening.

Republicans are rolling out letters from law enforcement groups to bolster their attacks on Mangi. In a March 28 press release, Senate Republicans announced, “Pennsylvania Police Groups Oppose Adeel Mangi for the Third Circuit for Ties to Philly Cop Killer, Organizations represent more than 40,000 Pennsylvania police officers.” The press release featured opposition by the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which made the outlandish claim that Mangi’s confirmation would “set a dangerous precedent that supporters of cop killings can rise to a bench that is one step from the United States Supreme Court.” But the Pennsylvania FOP is a right-wing political group that consistently supports Republican causes and candidates, including Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, numerous other law enforcement groups, including the International Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Italian American Police Society of New Jersey, and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, have endorsed Mangi. But the Republican tactics are bearing fruit.

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced her opposition to Mangi because his “affiliation with the Alliance of Families for Justice is deeply concerning.” Cortez Masto cited AFJ’s “fellowship in the name of Kathy Boudin” and advocacy “for the release of individuals convicted of killing police officers.” Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV), followed suit, stating that she is “not planning to vote to confirm” Mangi based on “concerns I’ve heard from law enforcement in Nevada.” Rosen did not disclose which groups expressed concerns.

If all Republican Senators oppose Mangi, the opposition by Cortez Masto and Rosen is enough to sink Mangi’s nomination. But Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) also said he was opposed to Mangi, saying that Mangi was “out of my wheelhouse.”

Cortez Masto, Rosen, and Manchin all voted to confirm Anuraag Singhal, who was nominated to be a federal district court judge in Florida by Trump. Singhal “represented Jeffrey Lee Weaver, who was charged with murdering Fort Lauderdale, Florida, police officer Bryant Peney” and asked the jury to “find some love in your heart for Jeff Weaver” and spare him the death penalty. There is nothing wrong with providing legal advocacy for someone accused or convicted of killing a police officer. But that is not something Mangi has actually done.

What a crowd-sourced reporting project revealed about how the Senate works

On March 20, when Mangi’s nomination was imperiled by anonymous Democratic Senators, Popular Information asked readers to contact their Senators and ask for their position on Mangi. Thousands of readers participated, and the results were revealing.

In response to inquiries, only Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) committed to supporting Mangi. With the exception of those who announced their opposition, the rest refused to take a firm position. Here is a representative response from Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM):

On January 18, 2023, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary advanced Mangi’s nomination by a vote of 11 to 10. His nomination is now awaiting consideration by the full U.S. Senate. We should hold judicial nominees to the highest standards of integrity, professionalism, and experience. I will keep these principles and the best interest of New Mexicans in mind when the United States Senate considers Mr. Mangi’s nomination.

What is happening?

The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), a right-wing dark money group, began running ads targeting “antisemite Adeel Mangi.” The spending on these ads is relatively minimal, about $50,000. But it is a shot across the bow. It is a message that anyone who supports Mangi will be subject to harshly negative attacks.

If a vote on Mangi’s nomination is held, most Democratic Senators would likely vote for him. But these same Democrats realize that, with key Senators opposing his nomination, Mangi may drop out before a vote is held. Therefore, Senators are trying to avoid taking a position unless it’s necessary.

This creates a destructive dynamic. Republicans and some Democrats are speaking out against Mangi, but most of Mangi’s likely supporters are staying silent. It makes it virtually impossible for Mangi’s nomination to gain the momentum it needs.

Mangi’s nomination is not officially dead, but, at this point, his best hope is to win the support of a handful of Republicans who sometimes cross party lines, including Senators Mitt Romney (R-UT), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Murkowski has publicly said she is undecided.

Substacks

July 25, 2024 Heather Cox Richardson

Published

10 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Substacks

TGIF: The Week Unburdened by the Week That Has Been Suzy Weiss

Published

17 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside of Union Station to protest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States. (Probal Rashid via Getty Images)

Oh, no, it’s the sister again, for another slow news week. Let’s get to it.

→ Biden dropped out: Six years ago emotionally, but technically this past Sunday, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. He did it via X and promptly threw his support (and cash) behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Then he got Covid and hunkered down in Delaware—or depending on what hooch you’ve been drinking, died and was reanimated so he could appear before the cameras on Wednesday to address the nation. Joe’s family, including Hunter, sat along the wall of the Oval Office as he spoke. The president talked about the cancer moonshot, ending the war in Gaza, putting the party over himself, and Kamala’s tenacity, as Kamala’s pistol dug ever-so-slightly harder into his back. Right after, Jill, the First Lady of passive aggression, who apparently wanted to outdo her heart emoji, tweeted a handwritten note “to those who never wavered, to those who refused to doubt, to those who always believed.” I respect a First Lady who stands by her man and her energetic stepson. A First Lady who sees the high road way up there and says to herself, “If they want us out of here so bad, they can clean out the fridge and strip the beds themselves!”

→ Kamala is brat, Biden is boots, please God send the asteroid today: I’ve learned the hard way—and by that I mean my parents once asked me what “WAP” meant—that certain things should never be explained with words. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it embarrasses everyone.

That’s how I feel about the whole Kamala-is-brat thing. Brat is a good album about partying and getting older and having anxiety that was released earlier this summer by Charli XCX. But it’s since been adopted by too-online and very young people as a personality, and by Kamala Harris’s campaign as a mode to relate to those very young people. Her campaign is leaning into the whole green look of the album to try and win over Gen Z, and generally recasting her many viral moments—“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” “I love Venn diagrams” “What can be, unburdened but what has been”—as calling cards. It’s like when Hillary went on Broad City, only this time more cringe.

And now we have Jake Tapper and Greg Gutfeld grappling with the “essence” and the “aesthetic” and overall vibe of brat girl summer. We used to be a serious country. We used to make things.

Here’s the thing about Kamla: she is hilarious and campy, but unintentionally so. Any goodwill that her goofy dances or weird turns of phrase garner should be considered bonus points, not game play. Was there ever any doubt that Fire Island would go blue? We’ve been debating whether Kamala’s meme campaign is a good move for her prospects in the Free Press Slack, and here I’ll borrow from my older and wiser colleague Peter Savodnik: “There is nothing more pathetic than an older person who cares what a younger person thinks is cool.”

→ Boomer behavior: While Kamala’s campaign is being run by a 24-year-old twink with an Adderall prescription, J.D. Vance’s speechwriter seems to be a drunk Boomer who just got kicked out of a 7-11. Vance, appearing this week at a rally in Middletown, Ohio, riffed, “Democrats say that it is racist to believe. . . well, they say it’s racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today, and I’m sure they’re going to call that racist too.” Crickets. Horror. Major “Thanks, Obama” energy. There was also a bit on fried bologna sandwiches and a lot of “lemme tell you another story.” The guy is 39 but sounds older than Biden.

Fresher, 35-to-60-year-old blood is exactly what we’ve been begging for. Let the Boomers boom, let the Zoomers zoom. Kamala and J.D.: act your age.

Substacks

July 25, 2024 Heather Cox Richardson

Published

21 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Momentum continues to build behind Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, and the national narrative as a whole has shifted.

Democrats appear to be generating significant enthusiasm among younger Americans. Yesterday, for the first time in their history, the March for Our Lives organization endorsed a presidential candidate: Kamala Harris. Students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, organized March for Our Lives after the shooting there in 2018. Executive director Natalie Fall said that the organization “will work to mobilize young people across the country to support Vice President Harris and other down-ballot candidates, with a particular focus on the states and races where we can make up the margin of victory—in Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Florida.”

Andrea Hailey of Vote.org announced that in the 48 hours after President Biden said he would not accept the Democratic nomination, nearly 40,000 people registered to vote. That meant a daily increase in new registrations of almost 700%.

People are turning out for Harris in impressive numbers. In the hours after she launched her campaign, Win With Black Women rallied 44,000 Black women on Zoom and raised $1.6 million. On Monday, around 20,000 Black men rallied to raise $1.2 million. Tonight, challenged to “answer the call,” 164,000 white women joined an event that “broke Zoom” and raised more than $2 million and tens of thousands of new volunteers.

Another significant endorsement for Harris came yesterday from Geoff Duncan, the Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia, who wrote on social media: “I’m committed to beating Donald Trump. The only vehicle left for me to do that with is the Democratic Party. If that requires me to vote for, speak for, or endorse [Kamala Harris] then count me in!” Duncan’s public announcement offers permission for other Georgia Republicans to make a similar shift. In 1964, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond similarly paved the way for southern Democrats to vote for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Harris’s appearances are generating such enthusiasm from audiences that when she delivered the keynote address this morning at the convention of the American Federation of Teachers in Houston, Texas, the applause delayed her ability to begin. After a speech defending education and calling out the cuts to it in Project 2025, Harris ended by demonstrating that after decades of Democrats being accused of being anti-American, Trump’s denigration of the country has enabled the party to claim the position of being America’s defenders.

“When we vote, we make our voices heard,” Harris said. “So today, I ask you, AFT, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it? And when we fight, we win! God bless you and God bless the United States of America.”

Today the Commerce Department reported that economic growth in the second quarter was higher than expected, coming in at 2.8%, thanks to higher spending driven by higher wages. The country’s changing momentum is showing in media stories hyping the booming economy Biden’s team tried for years to get traction on. “Full Employment is Joe Biden’s True Legacy” was the title of a story by Zachary Carter that appeared yesterday in Slate; CNN responded to today’s good economic news with an article by Bryan Mena titled: “The US economy is pulling off something historic.”

With Harris appearing to have sewn up the nomination, the question has turned to her vice presidential pick. That question is fueling the sense of excitement as potential choices are in front of cameras and on social media advocating Democratic positions and defending the United States from Trump’s denigration. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro listed the economic gains of the past years, and said: “Trump, you’ve got to stop sh*t talking America. We’ve got to start standing tall and being patriotic and showing how much we love this amazing nation.”

The vice presidential hopefuls appear to be having some fun with showcasing their personalities, as Minnesota governor Tim Walz did in his video from the Minnesota State Fair where he and his daughter went on an extreme ride. So are social media users who have dug up old videos of, for example, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explaining how he would pilot a small starfighter that had lost its auxiliary shields, or Arizona senator Mark Kelly’s identical twin brother Scott pranking a fellow astronaut on the Space Station with a gorilla suit Mark smuggled on board.

That sense of fun is an enormous relief after years of political weight, and it has spilled over into making fun of the Republican ticket, most notably with a false story that vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance wrote about—and I cannot believe I am typing this—having sex with a couch. The story is stupid, but worse are the denials of it, which have spread the story into populations that otherwise would likely not have seen it.

Just two weeks ago, Vance appeared to be the leader of the next generation of extremist MAGA Republicans, but now that calculation seems to have been hasty. Vance is a staunch opponent of abortion—the key issue in 2024—and he has been vocal in his disdain of women who have not given birth, saying in 2021, for example, that the U.S. was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He went on to say that people who don’t have children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country.

Republican commentator Meghan McCain noted that Vance’s “comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian.” Actor Jennifer Aniston, who tends to stay out of politics, posted: “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States.” Vance had called out Harris by name in those 2021 comments, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff took to social media to defend Harris from Vance’s attacks on her as “childless,” calling her “a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.” Harris’s stepdaughter chimed in: “I love my three parents.”

Vance also ties the Republican ticket firmly to Project 2025. The Trump camp has worked to distance itself from Project 2025—not convincingly, since the two are obviously closely tied, but it turns out that Vance wrote the introduction for a forthcoming book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who was the lead author of Project 2025. The book appears to popularize that plan, right down to its endorsement of a “Second American Revolution,” and according to the book deal report, proceeds from the book will go to the Heritage Foundation “and aligned nonprofits.”

Now Vance’s words praising Project 2025 will be in print, just in time for the election. Yesterday, Trump posted: “I have nothing to do with, and know nothing about, Project 25 [sic]. The fact that I do is merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs. Do not believe them!”

Trump is clearly aware of, and concerned about, the changing narrative. This morning, he called in to Fox & Friends, saying, “We don’t need the votes. I have so many votes. I’m in Florida now…and every house has a Trump-Vance sign on it. Every single house…. It’s amazing the spirit…. This election has more spirit than I’ve ever seen ever before.” Tonight the Trump campaign proved their worry by backing out of debates with Harris, saying debates can’t be scheduled until she is the official nominee, although Biden was not the official nominee when they met in June.

The larger narrative shift has affected the media approach to Trump, who is accustomed to shaping perceptions as he wishes. Now, 12 days after the mass shooting at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there is increasing media attention to the fact that there has still been no medical report on Trump’s injuries, although he wore a large bandage on his ear at the Republican National Convention and said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday that he “took a bullet for democracy.”

Yesterday, FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress that it is not clear whether Trump was “grazed” by a bullet or by shrapnel, words that former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance called “FBI speak for, ‘it’s unlikely it was a bullet.’”

CNN chief medical consultant Dr. Sanjay Gupta noted last week that the people need a real medical evaluation of Trump’s injuries, explaining that “gunshot blasts near the head can cause injuries that aren’t immediately noticeable, such as bleeding in or on the brain, damage to the inner ear or even psychological trauma.” But, as Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has noted, much of the press has kept mum about the story.

Media outlets have reported Wray’s testimony, though, and in a social media post today, Trump called on Wray, whom he appointed to head the FBI, to resign from his post for “LYING TO CONGRESS.” Tonight, he reiterated that “it was…a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.”

Perhaps eager to get back to their districts, House Republicans canceled their expected votes on appropriations bills scheduled for next week and left town today for their August recess. The House will not reconvene until early September. The government’s fiscal year 2025 begins on October 1.

—

Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/opinion/trump-lies-charts-data.html

https://marchforourlives.org/in-a-first-ever-endorsement-march-for-our-lives-endorses-kamala-harris-for-president/

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-economic-growth-regains-steam-second-quarter-inflation-slows-2024-07-25/

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/biden-economy-employment-inflation.html

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/entertainment/jennifer-aniston-jd-vance/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/economy/us-economy-gdp-second-quarter/index.html

https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/jd-vance-wrote-foreword-book-project-2025-architect-kevin-roberts-and-proceeds

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-might-not-shot-1930037

https://people.com/was-trump-struck-by-bullet-or-shrapnel-fbi-director-testifies-8683340

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-wants-fbi-director-resign-immediately-chris-wray-rcna163641