Adair Ford Boroughs on track to be SC’s next US attorney after Senate panel OKs nomination
Adair Ford Boroughs is on track to become South Carolina’s next United States attorney after her nomination was advanced Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The committee voted together in a matter of seconds by voice vote on Boroughs’ and Enix Marshall’s nominations, sending them to the full Senate for confirmation. Marshall was nominated for U.S. Marshal in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Louisiana.
“I’m looking forward to the floor vote,” Boroughs told The State over text.
A majority of committee members voted to advance the nominations. Two senators asked to be recorded as not voting to confirm: Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Josh Hawley of Missouri.
The office of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boroughs, 42, was nominated by President Joe Biden on June 6 to be the next U.S. attorney for South Carolina.
A native of Barnwell County, Boroughs has an established academic and legal background. She graduated with honors from Furman in 2002 and from Stanford Law School in 2007. She also spent a period before graduating from Stanford as a public school teacher.
Starting in 2013, she served as a legal clerk for Richard Gergel, a U.S. district judge.
In 2020, Boroughs ran a competitive but unsuccessful Democratic campaign against longtime Congressman Joe Wilson.
The most recent addition to her resume was starting a Columbia law firm, Boroughs Bryant.
She met her firm partner Christopher Bryant while clerking for Gergel. The firm seeks to provide affordable representation to political candidates, advocacy groups, small businesses and nonprofits in South Carolina.
Her likely appointment to the U.S. attorney’s office in South Carolina will end a period of interim leadership for the office that dates back to February 2021 after former state Rep. Peter McCoy resigned when Biden took office.
McCoy was nominated by former President Donald Trump.
In that time, two career federal prosecutors — Rhett DeHart and Corey Ellis — have served as interim U.S. attorneys for the state. Ellis, the current interim U.S. attorney, was appointed in December and is expected to stay until Boroughs officially gets the job.
The U.S. attorney for South Carolina is the highest federal prosecutor in the state and the chief federal law enforcement officer responsible for federal criminal prosecutions and civil litigation involving the U.S. in the state. Otherwise, the office is responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the district.
Those crimes span narcotics and firearms cases, gang violence, human trafficking, white-collar crime, tax fraud, securities fraud, public corruption, terrorism and civil rights violations. The office also defends the U.S. in civil cases and collects debts owed to the United States.
Its prosecutors work with agents from the FBI, Secret Service, IRS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Boroughs will oversee the office of approximately 62 assistant U.S. attorneys, 75 support staff and 18 contract support staff.
Lawyers for the U.S. Attorney’s office are headquartered in Columbia, with satellite offices in Charleston, Greenville and Florence.
This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 10:09 AM with the headline "Adair Ford Boroughs on track to be SC’s next US attorney after Senate panel OKs nomination."
