WASHINGTON – Barely a week after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unexpectedly died, Senate Republican leaders will vote as soon as Tuesday to confirm a judicial nominee who once called the late senator “a weak-ass $$&&!”Kara Westercamp, President Donald Trump’s pick for a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Court of International Trade, also described Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has been hospitalized for weeks with a mysterious health condition, as a “modern-day Benedict Arnold” and “Cocaine Mitch.”The timing of her vote is curious. With Graham’s sudden death and no clear sense of when or if McConnell will return, GOP leaders are now moving forward with Westercamp’s nomination – which had been sitting on the Senate calendar since April – with neither GOP senator present to vote on it or to remind colleagues of Westercamp’s attacks on them.A senior Senate GOP aide, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said they weren’t sure if Westercamp’s vote was happening now because of Graham and McConnell not being here.Kara Westercamp said she's sorry she attacked GOP senators on social media before she needed their votes to get confirmed to a court seat.Kara Westercamp's X accountTrump has heaped praise on Westercamp, 44, who is currently one of his White House lawyers and was previously a trade attorney in the Justice Department’s civil division. When the president nominated her to this court in February, he hailed her as “one of the incredible lawyers defending our historic and popular America First Agenda.”“Kara knows the Wisdom and Courage required to protect the American People, who have been ripped off by other Countries for far too long,” Trump said on social media. “She will always put America First. Congratulations Kara!”But Westercamp’s confirmation process has been bumpy and awkward. In now-deleted social media posts, she assailed several Republican senators who are deciding whether to confirm her to a powerful court seat.In one case, she retweeted a February 2021 post saying people “should remove” all seven GOP senators who voted to impeach Trump. Three of those seven are still in the Senate: Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.In August 2020, when Graham chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, Westercamp tore into him for allowing former acting Attorney General Sally Yates to testify virtually amid the panel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The hearing took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many lawmakers and witnesses participated via Zoom for safety reasons.“The spirit of #McCain is strong — making Graham a weak-ass $$&&!” Westercamp posted at the time, in response to someone criticizing Graham for not making Yates testify in person.Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is “a weak-ass $$&&!,” Kara Westercamp said on social media in 2020.Kara Westercamp's X accountSen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the judicial panel, ran through some of her other social media attacks on GOP senators in her confirmation hearing. Westercamp repeatedly called McConnell “Cocaine Mitch” – a reference to a fake scandal where cocaine was found on a tanker owned by McConnell’s wife’s family – and accused him of “embodying everything that’s wrong with politics.” She criticized Collins for being insufficiently loyal to Trump. And she accused Graham of being “true to NO ONE, but [his] own self-preservation.”Asked to respond, Westercamp said she made those comments in her “personal capacity as a private citizen,” but now regrets them and wants to “sincerely apologize.”Her past comments may be coming back to haunt her. The Senate barely advanced Westercamp’s nomination on Thursday, with senators voting 49-48 on a procedural step that comes before a confirmation vote. Every Democrat voted no, along with two Republicans: Collins and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Three senators missed the vote: Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and McConnell.Requests for comment from Collins and Paul were not returned.Darline Graham Nordone, the sister of the late South Carolina senator, was sworn in last Tuesday to temporarily fill her brother’s seat. She voted to advance Westercamp’s nomination. Her office did not respond to a request for comment on whether she plans to vote to confirm Westercamp.Assuming Hagerty and Murphy are present for Westercamp’s confirmation vote, and assuming both vote along party lines, it would only take one more GOP senator voting against her confirmation to sink it. Not even Vice President JD Vance could help because he can only come in to break a tie. McConnell’s prolonged absence means there will be no tie to break.Kara Westercamp retweeted this post taking a shot at Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is now signaling she'll oppose Westercamp's nomination to a federal court seat.Kara Westercamp's X accountWestercamp’s attacks on GOP senators aren’t the only thing hanging over her nomination. Democrats have condemned her for downplaying the violence of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and for fueling conspiracy theories about Capitol Police officers being complicit in the day’s violence.If confirmed, Westercamp will serve on a court with nationwide jurisdiction over civil cases arising under U.S. trade laws, including lawsuits related to tariff disputes. It’s not hard to see why Trump wants a loyal ally on this court, which has been an obstacle to his efforts to bypass Congress and unilaterally impose tariffs on countries that don’t agree with his demands.In May, the court shot down his attempt to impose a 10% global tariff, ruling it illegal. That ruling came months after the Supreme Court dealt another major blow to the Trump administration, holding that it was illegal for Trump to invoke the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to declare a national emergency and impose global tariffs.Democrats, for their part, are hammering Westercamp for not having the temperament to be a judge, hoping to pull just one more GOP senator into their camp.“Ms. Westercamp’s social media account reads like Trump fan fiction: questioning the outcome of the 2020 election; whitewashing the January 6 attack on the Capitol; attacking Chief Justice Roberts for not being sufficiently conservative; and crudely attacking Republican Senators, including my colleagues Senators Cassidy, Collins, and McConnell, and the late-Senator Graham,” Durbin told HuffPost in a statement.“This shameless display of extreme rhetoric does not reflect the independence or the judicial temperament required for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench,” he said.RelatedMitch McConnellLindsey GrahamKara WestercampU.S. Court of International Trade