Biden’s judicial pick supported candidates linked to Hamas-affiliated groups

An attorney nominated by President Joe Biden to a lifetime appointment on the federal judiciary donated to at least two Democratic state political candidates who led groups linked to Hamas, the Washington Examiner has found.

Adeel Mangi, who faces an uphill battle to confirmation in the Senate due to lawmakers raising concerns over his ties to an anti-Israel think tank and other left-wing groups, contributed to the since-failed campaigns of Tahanie Aboushi, who ran in 2021 for Manhattan district attorney, and Zead Ramadan, a 2013 New York City Council hopeful. The donations have not been previously reported and are public in New York state campaign finance records.

Aboushi is a civil rights lawyer who received support on the campaign trail from anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour and who used to be president of the New York chapter of Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a group scrutinized for partnerships with Hamas-affiliated entities. Meanwhile, Ramadan is on the board of New York’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which reportedly counted him as the president in 2013. CAIR was named by federal prosecutors as an “unindicted co-conspirator” of Hamas in a 2009 terrorism financing case involving the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a defunct charity shuttered by the U.S. government for providing material support to Hamas.

News of the nominee’s donations to the ex-candidates, which amounted to $100 to Aboushi and $600 combined to Ramadan, comes after Republicans and a handful of Democrats said they won’t support Mangi based on some of his controversial affiliations. Following a Washington Examiner report, Mangi apologized in March to the Senate Judiciary Committee for failing to disclose his participation in an event with activists from an anti-Israel center at Rutgers Law School that Mangi donated to and helped advise. Mangi, who would be the first Muslim-American judge on a federal appeals court, is also on an advisory board for the Alliance of Families for Justice, which fights to end “mass incarceration” and has ties to police killers, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Mangi did not return a request for comment. The White House has stood behind the nominee and referred to GOP criticism of Mangi’s role on the Rutgers group, which hosted a 2021 event featuring a anti-israel-terrorist-loving-think-tank/” title=”Biden’s nominee linked to anti-Israel think tank with terrorist sympathies”>convicted terrorist fundraiser, as “cruel and Islamophobic.”

“There’s more evidence building up every day of Mangi’s connections to terror apologists and pro-terror groups. It’s shocking to me that this administration continues to defend his nomination. There are lots of great Muslim-American lawyers who don’t have these ties to anti-cop and pro-terror groups,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network. The conservative group has slammed the Rutgers think tank for appearing to blame Israel for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack last year on the Jewish state.

Aboushi, the Democratic ex-candidate in New York that Mangi backed, came under fire in 2021 from Jewish News Syndicate for having “a history of consorting with extremists and antisemites.” Aboushi did not return a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.

She has called Sarsour, who backed her candidacy and supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, or BDS, movement against Israel, “a fearless sister.” On Oct. 14, 2023, just days after the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel that left roughly 1,200 dead in the Jewish state, Aboushi posted a graphic on her Facebook profile that read, “I stand with Palestine.”

Aboushi served as president of Palestine Children’s Relief Fund in New York in 2015 and 2014, as well as vice president of PCRF in 2013 and 2012, documents show. She has appeared to tout collaborating with the Islamic Circle of North America, which shares leadership with Jamaat-e-Islami, an international Islamist group said to be responsible for genocide and other war crimes during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence.

In 2004, the New York Times reported the Hamas-tied Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development attempted to route $50,000 to PCRF.

On its 2022 annual report, PCRF lists a partnership with Islamic Relief Palestine, an affiliate of Islamic Relief Worldwide. The State Department in 2020 accused Islamic Relief Worldwide of being antisemitic, citing its leadership’s prior praise for Hamas as “the purest resistance movement in modern history” that is full of “great men” answering the “divine and holy call of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Ramadan, the other Democratic candidate Mangi supported, was disclosed by CAIR New York on its 2022 tax forms as the group’s board’s vice president.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism, a nonprofit research group, has accused Ramadan of pledging cash in the past at a fundraiser to a group that has also funded Hamas.

Reached by the Washington Examiner, the CAIR New York board member said he has no personal relationship with Mangi, the Biden judicial nominee.

The relationship between the Biden administration and CAIR, however, has been rocky.

Nihad Awad, CAIR national director, asserted last year he “was happy to see” Palestinians “break the siege” on Oct. 7, prompting the White House to call Awad’s comments “shocking” and “antisemitic.”

“By choosing repeatedly to associate himself and financially support groups and individuals that espouse radical, antisemitic, and anti-Israel views, Mr. Mangi makes clear where he stands,” said Taylor Reidy, a spokeswoman for Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans. The panel’s ranking member, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), has repeatedly called on Biden to withdraw Mangi from consideration.

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New York state records show Mangi also donated in the past to the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, an organization pressing Biden to stop supporting Israel.

The Muslim Democratic Club of New York did not return a request for comment, nor did the White House.