PA Police Union Rejects Biden Judiciary Nominee

Joe Biden has been hoping to check off another box with one of his judiciary nominees.

Biden has nominated Adeel Mangi to the appellate court, and if confirmed, it would make him the first Muslim American judge to be appointed to a lifetime position to a federal appeals court seat.

While already not well received in the Senate, Biden is now facing pushback from Pennsylvania’s largest police union.

Can’t Have It

The heads of the three major police unions in the state of Pennsylvania are not too happy about a judge being appointed who is associated with an organization that once called a man who killed a police officer a “freedom fighter.”

Collectively, the three union leaders penned a letter demanding that Senator Schumer (D-N.Y.) not support the nomination.

In part, the letter stated, “Mr. Mangi has never been a judge at any level, but our opposition to his nomination is based on far more serious concerns.

“On behalf of more than 40,000 members of the Pennsylvania Fraternal Order of Police, Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, and the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, we’re writing today to ask that you reject the nomination of Adeel A. Mangi.”

For Philadelphia natives, of which I am, this protest is rooted in the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, who Mumia Abu-Jamal has been convicted of killing in cold blood in downtown Philadelphia.

I remember the killing when it happened, and how polarized the city was over this death.

Yet, Mangi has served as an advisory board member for the Alliance of Families for Justice, which once called Abu-Jamal a “freedom fighter” at a May 2021 event.

We should also note that a founding member of the organization, Kathy Boudin, pleaded guilty to felony murder in an armored truck robbery that went south in 1981, resulting in the death of two other officers.

Mangi has since stated, “I would like to note that I emphatically disagree with the phrasing used with regard to that event (‘elder freedom fighters’).

“I have never and would never use such phrasing to refer to anyone convicted of crimes against law enforcement.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been trying to fill that vacancy with another Muslim American, Zahid Quraishi, who was appointed to the bench in New Jersey in 2021 with a vote of 81-16.