Last week,Trump judicial nominee Kara Westercamp had the ignominious task of apologizing for her social media use in her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is deeply millennial-coded. Westercamp, currently serving in the White House Counsel’s Office, is Donald Trump’s pick for a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Court of International Trade. And yes, the subject of her questionable Twitter account absolutely came up.
According to reporting from Balls & Strikes, Westercamp’s social media history is a deeply online hodgepodge of far-right talking points. And though, yes, she took the CYA step of protecting her tweets, the internet has a way of remembering (it’s the wayback machine).
Also scattered across Westercamp’s Twitter timeline between October 2016 and February 2023 are tweets and retweets that (among many other things) question the results of the 2020 election, parrot transphobic talking points, sympathize with January 6 insurrectionists, and generally express unbridled enthusiasm for Trump and his political movement.
Plus she refers to Senator Mitch McConnell as “Cocaine Mitch” — a nickname that, while not exactly obscure in certain corners of the internet, tends to raise eyebrows when you’re asking that same Senate to hand you a lifetime appointment. She also took swings at Senate Democrats as well as Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, proving once again that bipartisan snark is still… snark.
To her credit (or at least to her survival instincts), Westercamp came to the hearing prepared to eat a healthy portion of crow.
“I do sincerely apologize for those posts,” she told the committee, emphasizing they were made in her “personal capacity.” She added that she has “seriously considered” deactivating her X account.
But the real trouble started when Ranking Member of the Committee, Dick Durbin, turned the conversation to January 6. Specifically, Westercamp’s apparent amplification of posts downplaying the violence of the Capitol attack.
Westercamp insisted she condemns the violence of that day, but when pressed on whether she would reject conspiracy theories suggesting law enforcement, rather than rioters, were responsible, she sidestepped. The retweets, she explained, came from “people I don’t know,” and she now regrets sharing them.
That’s… not exactly the full-throated rejection of conspiracy nonsense one might hope for from a would-be federal judge. Or, frankly, from anyone with a law license.
Look, everyone understands that lawyers are human beings who occasionally say controversial things online. (Some of us even make a career out of it.) But there’s a difference between a stray hot take and a pattern of posts that call into question your judgment… especially when you’re angling for a lifetime gig interpreting federal law.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
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