Progressive Democrat condemns Congressman's character attack on lawyer

In response to Representative Tom Kean's recent character attacks on Adeel Mangi, a New Jersey lawyer nominated by President Joe Biden, progressive Democrat Lisa McCormick condemned the Congressman's actions.

If confirmed, Mangi would become the first Muslim American to sit on a federal appeals court.

Kean cited the 46-year-old Adeel Mangi lawyer's association with a Rutgers University center that studies the repression of minority groups related to their racial and religious identity. McCormick, known for challenging Senator Bob Menendez in the 2018 primary election, has consistently spoken out against Kean's tactics and the GOP's use of bigotry to gain votes.

"Tom Kean's shameful and malicious behavior runs contrary to the 'politics of inclusion' preached by his father, but talk is cheap and these dirty tricks are reminiscent of the armed thugs patrolling Black neighborhoods to intimidate voters when the old man won the 1981 election for Governor," said McCormick. "It is a reminder that the Kean family's veneer of decency is a fraud."

The Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights has weighed in on the erosion of civil liberties in the United States over the past two decades.

McCormick noted that Mangi received a First Class degree in law from the University of Oxford, Pembroke College in 1998 and a Postgraduate diploma in Professional Legal Skills from the City University London Inns of Court School of Law in 1999, before he received a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 2000.

The Rutgers Law School human rights policy center noted that national security powers have disproportionately targeted Muslim and Arab communities, leading to the criminalization of Muslim identity through surveillance, sting operations, and immigration bans.

"The false association of terrorism and violence with Islam has grave consequences for the liberty interests of Muslims and those perceived as such," said the Rutgers Center. "The criminalization of Muslim identity is not unlike the historical repression faced by other racial and religious minority groups in the United States."

The Criminalizing Muslim Identity project, led by the Rutgers Center, examines how Muslim identity is criminalized by law, policy, and societal norms, with a focus on the structures adversely affecting religious and racial minorities.

The Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights is a research center that has hosted speakers critical of Israel and U.S. policy, alleging that it promotes antisemitism.

McCormick's condemnation of Kean's actions underscores the importance of addressing bigotry and discrimination in politics, particularly in the nomination process for federal judgeships.

The National Ballot Security Task Force was deployed in 1981 by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to discourage voter turnout among likely Democratic voters in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. Kean's father won that race by fewer than 1800 votes (out of about 2.3 million ballots cast) after the GOP 'task force' sent armed, off-duty police officers wearing armbands to patrol polling sites in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods of Newark and Trenton.

These activities prompted the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to bring a federal lawsuit, alleging a violation of the Voting Rights Act, illegal harassment, and voter intimidation that resulted in a 1982 consent decree barring the RNC and New Jersey Republican State Committee from engaging in such conduct, which expired on December 1, 2017.

After growing up amidst privilege, wealth and power, Kean's father cut deals with some of New Jersey's most corrupt, mob-affiliated politicians to become speaker of the Assembly and he cheated his way into the Governor's office using racial intimidation but then he wrote a book that discussed his 'innovative ideas' for the post-Reagan Revolution Republican Party, as if he was not part of that cancer.

"The Congressman's father was governor, his grandfather, Robert Kean, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and his great-grandfather, Hamilton Fish Kean, was a U.S. senator," said McCormick. "Someone who owes so much gratitude to American opportunity should restrain himself from making such unfounded disparaging remarks because that reveals the arrogance and contempt he feels for ordinary people."