David Alan Bragdon

On August 20, 2025, President Trump nominated David Alan Bragdon to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. He was confirmed on December 2, 2025.

View/download the fact sheet here.

View/download our letter of opposition here.

Check out The Book of Bragdon — Instagram and Bluesky

View/download a sign-on letter from North Carolina groups here.

Biography

David Alan Bragdon earned his law degree from University of Virginia School of Law (1999 – 2002)  and his B.A from Campbell University (1995 – 1999).

Legal Experience

Bragdon currently works in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, both as Appellate Chief (2021 – Present) and Assistant U.S. Attorney (2007 – Present). His other work history, includes:

• Adjunct Professor, Campbell University School of Law (2023)

• Resident Legal Advisor, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training (2017 – 2020)

• Law Clerk, Justice Clarence Thomas (2006 – 2007)

• Associate, Burr & Forman (2003 – 2006)

• Law Clerk, Judge Stephen F. Williams for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (2002 – 2003)

• Summer Associate, Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice (Summer 2001)

• Summer Associate, Brooks Pierce (Summer 2001)

• Summer Associate, Johnston Barton Proctor & Powell (Summer 2000)

Key Facts and Context

• Member of Federalist Society (2023-present, intermittently between 2003 and 2017)

• Participated in the Law Christian Fellowship during law school

• In personal capacity, signed on to letter in support of Justice Thomas from 112 former clerks (Aug. 29, 2023)

• In a Cambell Times letter to the editor titled, “Let Your Party Be Your Guide” Bragdon (as Executive President of the Student Government Association) writes, “On Tuesday, VOTE! Vote for the party that will revitalize the economy, save Social Security, cut the national debt, and abolish partial birth abortions. If you don’t have the time to figure out what each candidate stands for, be satisfied that you have voted for a party that wants freedom, liberty and local control. Vote Republican; I am.” (October 30, 1998)

• Signed on to a letter from a group of former Justice Clarence Thomas law clerks in support Joshua Divine to the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri (May 29, 2025)

• Bragdon promoted sweeping use of capital punishment, writing in Evidence that the Death Penalty Deters that there is “enough of a logical link between the death penalty and deterrence to call for an increased use of the death penalty.” He rejected arguments about racial bias, quoting Ernest van den Haag to say the solution is not to “let[] the guilty blacks escape the death penalty because guilty whites do, but [to] mak[e] sure that the guilty white offenders suffer it as the guilty blacks do.
• Bragdon has written extensively opposing reproductive freedom, and portraying it as illegitimate and equating abortion with murder. In his writing, he’s compared abortion to killing a neighbor one did not want: “It would be in my pursuit of happiness to kill the neighbor,” he wrote, claiming that “a citizen’s rights end when they inflict on another person’s rights.” He further argued that “each mother going to get an abortion already had her choice” and asked whether “our government [should] make the child pay the consequences for the woman’s poor judgment.” His position is clear: women “must face the consequences” of unintended pregnancy and should be denied access to abortion.