Graham 'enthusiastically' supports Biden pick for DC Circuit after she was passed over for SCOTUS

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., gave a full-throated endorsement of President Biden's nominee for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge J. Michelle Childs, following the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote to overwhelmingly support her appointment.

Childs, who received 17 votes in favor and just five against her nomination, is currently a federal judge for the District of South Carolina, Graham's home state. She had been rumored to be a finalist for the Supreme Court after Biden said he was nominating a Black woman to take the place that will be left vacant by Justice Stephen Breyer, and Graham had supported her for that as well.

"I enthusiastically supported her nomination to this important position and look forward to her confirmation by the full Senate," Graham said in a statement released Thursday morning.

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Graham referenced Childs' decade of experience on the federal bench, and how "she is highly respected by every corner of the legal community in South Carolina."

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The GOP senator recognized that "Judge Childs would not have been chosen by a conservative Republican president," but asserted that "she is highly qualified to do the job."

Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court, listens during her Senate confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, April 16, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

Graham cited Childs's reputation as a "fair" judge who follows "the law as it is written." That is not how he characterized Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who got the Supreme Court nod over Childs.

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During an April Senate Judiciary Committee meeting in which senators discussed Jackson's nomination to the high court, Graham called her an "activist to the core," as he cited a case where she ruled against the Trump administration, only to be overruled by a circuit court that sharply rejected her interpretation of a statute.

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As for Childs, Graham strongly supported her for the Supreme Court job, and accused progressives of "vicious" attacks against her in order to secure Jackson's nomination.

If Childs is confirmed, she will serve on the same court where Jackson currently sits until Breyer retires at the end of the current term and she takes his place.