EXCLUSIVE — A federal judicial nominee under fire for his prior role at an anti-Israel group was a key figure at a Muslim lawyers conference co-sponsored by a terrorism-linked group that the Biden White House disavowed over its Hamas support, documents show.
President Joe Biden has stood behind his pick for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of Adeel Mangi, a New Jersey attorney facing GOP-led scrutiny for sitting on an advisory board at Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race and Rights, an office that hosted a 2021 event featuring a convicted terrorist fundraiser. In late 2022, at the annual conference for the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, Mangi moderated a panel that included the Rutgers center’s director, Sahar Aziz, who discussed “the failure of entrapment law to protect Muslim defendants from government manufactured terrorist plots,” according to internal Rutgers emails obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Joining Aziz on that same panel was national litigation director Lena Masri for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which federal prosecutors named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” of Hamas in a 2009 terrorism financing case. And Mangi’s firm Patterson Belknap, CAIR, and other groups boosting Hamas talking points after its Oct. 7 attack last year on the Jewish state of Israel helped sponsor the 2022 event, further records show.
“Mr. Mangi failed to disclose his participation in the 2022 event to the committee. He must immediately update the committee on this and any other pertinent information missing from his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire,” said spokeswoman Taylor Reidy for Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans. “The deepening ties to the Rutgers Center and other radicals is further proof that the Senate should not confirm him to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit.”
Details about Mangi’s involvement in the National Association of Muslim Lawyers conference come as the White House rushes to defend him from what it dubbed “cruel and Islamophobic attacks” from Senate Republicans, who for months have expressed concern about Mangi’s relationship with the anti-Israel Rutgers center. They could also place the White House in a tough spot. In December, the White House distanced itself from CAIR due to its national executive director, Nihad Awad, asserting he was happy to see Palestinians “break the siege” on Oct. 7.
“We condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said at the time.
Mangi moderated a panel at the November 2022 conference called “Islamophobia in America: Losing Steam or Gaining Momentum?” In addition to Aziz and Masri, lawyer Samira Elhosary for the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America spoke on the panel. Elhosary’s group was formed under Muslim Legal Fund of America, which, like CAIR, was later a 2023 NAML conference sponsor.
The 2023 NAML conference was also sponsored by Islamic Relief USA, the international affiliate of which was banned by Israel in 2024 for allegedly funneling cash to Hamas, documents show.
Muslim Legal Fund of America bankrolled the defense of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a defunct charity shuttered by the U.S. government in 2001 over Hamas support and later sanctioned, according to bank records obtained by the FBI. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator, and former CAIR staffer Ghassan Elashi, who co-founded the since-defunct charity, was sentenced to 65 years in prison, court records show.
Internal emails obtained by the Washington Examiner provide a window into how Aziz, Mangi, Elhosary, and Masri planned for the 2022 event.
“Salaam All, I will address the counterterrorism aspect of Islamophobia,” Aziz wrote on Nov. 8, 2022, to the three individuals. “Specifically, I’ll be focusing on the relationship between CVE [Countering Violent Extremism], selective enforcement of anti-terrorism laws, and the failure of entrapment law to protect Muslim defendants from government manufactured terrorist plots.”
Since 2018, Aziz has directed the Rutgers center, which Republicans have zeroed in on over its 2021 event with Sami al Arian, an ex-University of South Florida professor who pleaded guilty in 2006 to aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. Muslim Legal Fund of America also funded the defense of Arian.
In her email, Aziz told Mangi, Elhosary, and Masri that NAML would distribute articles authored by her to participants to gain continuing legal education, or CLE, credit. One was “State Sponsored Radicalization,” which Aziz wrote in June 2021 and focused on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
“I look forward to seeing you all soon inshallah and safe travels,” Aziz, who was previously a paid fellow through the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations, wrote in the the email.
A few days later, others replied to plan for the panel, including Mangi.
“Update,” Mangi wrote to the group in the morning before the Nov. 12 panel. “I’m in the restaurant at the back and will be here for another 30 mins if anyone wants to talk about the panel.”
To Benjamin Baird, director of the Middle East Forum Action watchdog group, Mangi was participating in the conference with groups that are hardly mainstream.
“Groups such as NAML and the Center for Security, Race and Rights were established for Islamist jurists to defend terrorists and fight counter-terrorism measures,” he said. “They place the interests of suspected terrorists above public safety and national security needs.”
Still, the White House is on a lobbying spree to convince senators to back Mangi. Bates, the White House spokesman, said in a statement this week that Mangi “has been subjected to uniquely hostile attacks, in a way other nominees have not — precisely because of his Muslim faith.”
In testimony, Mangi sought to emphasize that he had a limited role with the Rutgers center, which received checks in recent years from the lawyer and his firm. The nominee said in late December, “My role on the advisory board was limited to participating in four meetings over the course of four years where I focused on academic research.”
According to the internal emails obtained by the Washington Examiner, Aziz solicited Mangi for a $2,500 donation in November 2021 for a “Palestine Program” the director said the center was launching.
The records indicate a relatively close relationship between Mangi and Aziz, who wrote, “Salaam Adeel, I hope your trial went well. As we near the end of the year, I am checking in on board members who have not yet made their annual donation to CSRR. I’ll be giving the board an update on our many accomplishments this past year — thanks in large part to the board’s financial support!”
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Mangi replied just 20 minutes later.
“Still going!” he told Aziz. “I thought I had made a donation earlier in the year, but I’ll check and make another.”
