Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) extensive record voting to confirm liberal judicial and executive nominees revered by the Left are weighing on his efforts to win a fifth six-year term in the Senate.

The South Carolina Senator is a mainstay on Fox News, where he alternates between cheerleading for President Donald Trump’s agenda while encouraging the President to veer towards neoconservative priorities. But his record confirming nominees who later haunt Trump tells a different story.

Graham voted to confirm President Joe Biden nominees Merrick Garland for Attorney General and Lisa Monaco for Deputy Attorney General.

Both were key architects of the lawfare against Trump and his family and allies.

But Graham’s votes to confirm Democrat-nominated judges, including James Boasberg, will haunt conservatives long after the Biden administration, and have already left a painful mark on the Trump agenda.

Breitbart News previously reported that Graham voted to confirm Judge Anne Traum, whom Biden nominated to the U.S. District Court for Nevada in 2022. Since taking the bench, the controversial Traum has developed a record for slapping child sex offenders on the wrist:

Graham broke with Republicans to confirm Traum, a former public defender, joining moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME) and Lisa Murkowski (AK).

Traum was confirmed 49 to 47, with Graham’s vote ensuring the vote did not result in a tie, which would have required Vice President Kamala Harris to break unless Graham’s vote pushed one of his other deferential Republican colleagues to join him in opposition.

Before Graham’s confirmation vote, Traum earned notoriety during her 2021 confirmation hearing when she refused to give a yes or no answer repeatedly when asked nine times by Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) whether criminal behavior should be forgiven in the name of social justice.

Breitbart News also reported Graham, Sen Susan Collins (R-ME), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) – who is likely to lose his own primary, in no small part to his own record confirming radical nominees – voted together to confirm an additional twelve Biden-nominated judges responsible for blocking President Donald Trump’s agenda on issues including immigration, fighting fraud, and trade.

Graham also voted to confirm three other judges who have effectively blocked Trump.

Boasberg, perhaps the face of judicial resistance to the Trump agenda, was nominated by President Barack Obama and sailed through his confirmation process with Republican support, including from Graham.
The judge wasted no time persecuting Trump during the opening days of his second administration, finding probable cause to hold Trump officials in criminal contempt over deportation flights and later resuming contempt proceedings over Alien Enemies Act deportations against Trump administration officials who authorized deportation flights to land in El Salvador in March, even after the judge ordered them to turn the planes around.
Boasberg had launched contempt proceedings in 2025 after accusing the Trump administration of defying a temporary restraining order instructing the government to return Venezuelan migrants to the United States after they were flown under the Alien Enemies Act to the notorious, high-security CECOT prison in El Salvador over allegations they were members of the gang Tren de Aragua.
Graham also voted to confirm a much more controversial (at the time) nominee, joining only Collins and Murkowski in voting to confirm Brendan Abell Hurson to be to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Maryland.
Hurson dealt Trump a significant legal setback over his transgender order and blocked orders to stop funds for health providers performing grotesque sex-rejecting surgeries on minors.
Graham also voted to confirm Lauren King to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Washington.
King joined Hurson in blocking Trump’s efforts to protect children from life-altering genital mutilation surgeries.
The emerging clarity of Graham’s confirmation votes comes as he fights the strongest primary challenge of his long career.

Mark Lynch, the preference of conservatives in the state, has committed to spend millions of his own fortune to challenge Graham. A third candidate recently suspended his campaign, and polling shows Lynch with a fighting chance of defeating Graham.

If Lynch is successful, Graham’s career in Washington, which began with his election to the House in 1994, would end. And after many years feeling otherwise, conservatives in South Carolina would gain a sense of satisfaction when seeing Graham on Fox News.
Bradley Jaye is Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.