An influential right-wing conservative judicial lobbying group in US, Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), this week launched a blatantly Islamophobic and misleading campaign against one of President Biden’s Muslim judicial nominee, Adeel Mangi.
Judicial Crisis Network is known for its steady stream of anonymous funding and a previous multimillion-dollar campaign aimed at semearing then Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, according to Huffpost. The group launched digital ads to exert pressure on Democrat senators Jon Tester and Bob Casey, who are up for reeclection in November, to oppose Adeel Mangi’s confirmation.
The JCN’s attacks on Mangi are deceptive and ugly, Huffpost report said. Mangi has been a civil litigator in New Jersey for 23 years, who is set to be the first Muslim appeals court judge in US. The group’s ads accuse Mangi of being a “radical” and an “antisemite”. The ads accuse Mangi of teaching students to hate Israel and America and to support global terrorism.
The ads even use video footage of 9/11 attack on World Trade Centre, overlaid with headline about Mangi.
Earlier, Republicans made similarly ugly attacks on Mangi in his December hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mangi was berated by GOP senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley. They demanded that Mangi share his personal views on 9/11 attack. Mangi rejected their claims and denounced all terrorism.
Support for Mangi
Later, the largest Muslim civil rights organisation in US publicly criticised the GOP senators for their treatment of Mangi. The Anti-Defamation League, the foremost national group dedicated to combating antisemitism, also condemned their actions.
Moreover, fifteen Jewish organizations pledged their “strong support” for Adeel Mangi after Republican senators subjecting Mangi to hostile and Islamophobic questioning during his confirmation hearing.
JCN previous attacks
The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) allocates substantial sums of money, including millions of dollars in dark money, to advance its agenda of promoting Republican judicial nominees while opposing Democratic nominees at the federal level, according to a report by Democratic Policy and Communication Committee
For instance, JCN expended $7 million to thwart President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. Following this, it allocated $10 million to advocate for the confirmation of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, and another $10 million in support of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Moreover, JCN heavily invested in lobbyists to facilitate the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh nominations through the Senate. More recently, JCN spent $10 million in less than two months to bolster Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court.
