Trump picks South Carolina governor’s lawyer for federal judgeship

President Donald Trump has chosen Grayson Lambert, chief legal counsel to South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, for a seat on the state’s federal district court. He announced the choice on Truth Social on Tuesday.

Federal court records show one vacancy on the court, created when Judge Timothy Cain took senior status, a form of semi-retirement, on 1 October. The vacancy list, updated on 10 November, names no nominee for the seat. It gives no time for the update, so it does not establish whether Lambert’s formal nomination has been sent to the Senate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee lists a questionnaire from Lambert under 27 October, and news outlets reported around that time that he was expected to be nominated. In the questionnaire, Lambert said he had told McMaster of his interest in a federal judgeship in December 2024. He said the governor expressed support for him to senators and that White House lawyers interviewed him on 13 October.

Nomination Notes reported that a sentence saying Trump had called Lambert on 21 October about his planned nomination was removed from an earlier version of the questionnaire. The committee chair’s office told the publication the sentence had been included inadvertently. A White House official said Lambert was being actively considered at the time, without confirming the call.

Lambert joined McMaster’s office in 2021 and became chief legal counsel in 2025. He was previously a partner at Burr & Forman and clerked for federal appeals judge Dennis Shedd. He graduated from the University of Virginia and Duke University School of Law.

Lambert represented McMaster in a challenge to South Carolina’s 2023 abortion law, which generally prohibits abortion after detection of what it calls a “fetal heartbeat”, with exceptions. The state’s Supreme Court upheld the law that year. He also represented the governor in a challenge to McMaster’s authority to send South Carolina National Guard troops to Washington, DC, at Trump’s request.

In his questionnaire, Lambert said that, if confirmed, he would step aside from cases in which McMaster is a party and from matters he worked on in the governor’s office.