Written by by NICOLE SILVERIO at dailycaller.com
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz exploded on a Democratic senator who accused him of assuming a nominee was an antisemite or terrorist sympathizer because he is Muslim.
During a Thursday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin cited the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which accused Cruz of “prejudicial treatment” and “bigotry” toward Adeel Mangi, who President Joe Biden nominated to serve as a U.S. Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in New Jersey.
Mangi previously appeared before the Judiciary Committee on Dec. 13. At that hearing, Cruz cited Mangi’s stint as an advisory board member for Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), which issued a letter during the 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict condemning the “colonial conditions of structural violence and inequality that Palestinians live under.” Mangi did not say whether he agreed with that statement, though he did condemn calls for genocide and described the Oct. 7 attack on Israel as a “horror.”
Cruz also asked Mangi whether he approved of an event that the CSSR held on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 featuring Sami Al-Arian, an activist who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiring to fund the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Mangi said he had not heard about the event, as the advisory board met only once per year, and that he condemned the 9/11 attacks.
“You have just impugned my character by making a false accusation, and I will say it is disgraceful!” Cruz told Durbin on Thursday. “Did you respond to any of the substance of what I said? No! You just attacked me and called me a bigot, and you responded by stating deliberate falsehoods. You said he would be the first Muslim.”
“Well, you know what? I understand —” he continued, as Durbin attempted to cut in. “Excuse me, I have a right to defend myself when you impugn my character in a way that is a new low for this committee.”
“You did not dispute any of the facts I said about the organization, that he was an advisor of, he was a donor of, he raised money for,” the Texas senator said. “The Democrats don’t want to defend the substance, so now they’re screaming Islamophobia, and I understand, playing the race card when anyone disagrees with the Democrats, they scream racist.”