Kenyen Brown (Main Justice file photo)

Kenyen Brown, a former House ethics committee staffer was sworn in Friday as the new U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Alabama, The Mobile Press-Register reports. Brown replaces Deborah Rhodes, who resigned April 17.

Brown, who was confirmed Nov. 21, is the first black U.S. Attorney in Alabama, according to the newspaper. He previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the district. Read our previous report about Brown’s unexpected rise here.

Among the attendees at Brown’s investiture at the John Archibald Campbell U.S. Courthouse in Mobile were federal and state judges from southwest Alabama, two congressmen, Mobile Mayor Sam Jones and relatives of Michael Donald, a black teenager who was lynched in Mobile in 1981.

Reflecting on his return to Alabama after working on Capitol Hill, Brown said, “When I look out my window here, I may not see national monuments, but the awesome responsibility and privilege is no less,” The Press-Register reported.

Brown told the newspaper he plans no changes to the management team in the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The Senate confirmed three Justice Department officials by unanimous consent Saturday night.

They are:

Kenyen Brown (Main Justice file photo)

-Kenyen Brown (Southern District of Alabama): The House Ethics Committee staffer and former Southern District of Alabama Assistant U.S. Attorney was nominated Aug. 6. Brown would succeed Deborah Rhodes, who resigned April 17. Read more about the nominee here.

Stephanie Rose

-Stephanie Rose (Northern District of Iowa): The Northern District of Iowa Assistant U.S. Attorney was nominated Sept. 25. She would succeed Matt Dummermuth, a Bush U.S. Attorney who never won Senate confirmation. Immigration lawyers and immigrant rights advocates have questioned Rose’s role in a controversial round-up of 300 undocumented immigrants working at a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, last year. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said in May that Rose didn’t take part in the decision to prosecute the immigrant workers. Read more about Rose here.

Nick Klinefeldt (Ahlers & Cooney)

-Nick Klinefeldt (Southern District of Iowa): The Des Moines lawyer was nominated Sept. 25. He would replace Matthew G. Whitaker, who has served as U.S. Attorney since 2004. We previously reported that the lawyer has been able to rise above the past of his father, Michael Arthur Klinefeldt, who is serving a 10-year sentence on a methamphetamine conviction. Read more about Klinefeldt here.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved three U.S. Attorney nominees by unanimous consent at its business meeting this morning.

They are:

Nick Klinefeldt (Ahlers & Cooney)

-Nick Klinefeldt (Southern District of Iowa): The Des Moines lawyer was nominated Sept. 25. He would replace Matthew G. Whitaker, who has served as U.S. Attorney since 2004. We previously reported that the lawyer has been able to rise above the past of his father, Michael Arthur Klinefeldt, who is serving a 10-year sentence on a methamphetamine conviction. Read more about Klinefeldt here.

Stephanie Rose

-Stephanie Rose (Northern District of Iowa): The Northern District of Iowa Assistant U.S. Attorney was nominated Sept. 25. She would succeed Matt Dummermuth, a Bush U.S. Attorney who never won Senate confirmation. Immigration lawyers and immigrant rights advocates have questioned Rose’s role in a controversial round-up of 300 undocumented immigrants working at a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, last year. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said in May that Rose didn’t take part in the decision to prosecute the immigrant workers. Read more about Rose here.

Kenyen Brown (Main Justice file photo)

-Kenyen Brown (Southern District of Alabama): The House Ethics Committee staffer and former Southern District of Alabama Assistant U.S. Attorney was nominated Aug. 6. Brown would succeed Deborah Rhodes, who resigned April 17. Read more about the nominee here.

The panel has now approved 24 U.S. Attorneys, including the 18 U.S. Attorneys who have been confirmed by the Senate. There are another five U.S. Attorney nominees who have not been considered by the committee yet. There are 93 U.S. Attorney positions nationwide.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to vote on the Southern District of Alabama U.S. Attorney nominee next Thursday, the panel announced today.

Kenyen Brown (Main Justice file photo)

Kenyen Brown is a House Ethics Committee staffer and former Southern District of Alabama Assistant U.S. Attorney. President Obama nominated him Aug. 6. Brown would succeed Deborah Rhodes, who resigned April 17. Read more about the nominee here.

Another eight U.S. Attorney candidates have been nominated so far, but they haven’t come before the committee yet. There are 93 U.S. Attorney jobs nationwide.

Kenyen Brown

Kenyen Brown (University of Alabama, University of Tennessee College of Law) is nominated to replace Deborah Rhodes, who resigned April 17.

Brown’s vitals:

• Born in Detroit, Mich., in 1969.
• Has been a staffer on the House ethics committee, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, since May 2008.
• On the House ethics panel, served as deputy chief counsel to the  director of advice and education from May 2008 to July 2008, then as acting chief counsel/staff director from August 2008 until April. He’s been the panel’s director of advice and education since May.
• Worked on the Senate Select Committee on Ethics from April 1999 to April 2008, serving as counsel until March 2007 and then as the senior counsel to the  director of education and training.
• Served as the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama from August 1996 to April 1999.
• Was deputy district attorney for Montgomery County, Ala., from  November 1995 to July 1996.
• Clerked for Lloyd, Schreiber and Gray in Birmingham and Foshee & Associates in Montgomery.
• Attended the University of Tennessee College of Law on an academic scholarship and Indiana University of Pennsylvania on academic and athletic scholarships before transferring to the University of Alabama.
• Named by Roll Call as one of the “Fabulous Fifty” “Movers and Shakers Behind the Scenes of Capitol Hill” in 2008 and 2009.
• As an Assistant U.S. Attorney tried 15-20 cases that went to trial, most of which he served as the sole counsel.
• While a deputy district attorney, handled approximately 3000 cases, about 300 of which resulted in bench trials.

Click here for his full questionnaire.

UPDATE: Brown also disclosed to the committee that his assets total $578,000 and he has $310,00 in liabilities, leaving him with a net worth of $268,000.

On his Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure Brown reported assets valued at a maximum of $1,000 and no liabilities.

After Main Justice broke the news last month that the White House was vetting an obscure Capitol Hill staffer for U.S. Attorney in Alabama’s Southern District, Rep. Artur Davis diplomatically declined to comment.

Artur Davis (gov)

The White House’s elevation of House ethics committee staffer Kenyen Brown for the post was a diss to Davis. The Harvard-educated African-American pol is trying to modernize Alabama and move beyond its polarizing racial politics. As he gears up to run for governor next year, aiming to break his own racial barrier in the Deep South state, Davis has also tried to professionalize the U.S. Attorney selection process, moving away from the rank partisan politics that defined it during the Bush administration.

Toward that end, Rep. Davis formed a highly credentialed search committee, and ultimately recommended Vicki Davis (no relation), an African-American Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District as his first choice for the Southern District; and a white former magistrate judge named Patrick Sims, now in private practice at at Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas & O’Neal in Mobile, as his second choice.

But after Davis ran into vetting problems (click here for our previous report), the White House completely skipped over Sims. It’s our information that Sims wasn’t even called to Washington for an interview. The view of many in the Alabama legal community is that Sims was simply the wrong color. Alabama’s other two prosecuting districts are slated to be filled by whites (Joyce Vance in the Northern District and Joe Van Heest in the Middle District). The White House, it appears, was bound and determined to have at least one black U.S. Attorney in Alabama. And the 39-year-0ld Kenyen Brown – although he has few ties to the Alabama establishment – fit that bill: He is African-American.

Nothing againt Kenyen Brown, who by all accounts is a fine fellow.

But now, the Mobile-Press Register reports that Artur Davis has broken his silence. In an interview with the newpaper’s Sean Reilly, Davis came out publicly swinging for Vicki Davis, saying:

“There is certainly nothing that has surfaced that in any way suggests that Vicki Davis is not qualified to be the U.S. Attorney or has anything other than the highest level of character and integrity.”

Moveover, Mobile attorney Tom Haas wrote in a letter to Obama yesterday that the 50 members Mobile Area Democratic Association support Vicki Davis.

“Her credentials are so outstanding that we cannot believe that there is any individual more qualified,” he wrote in the letter obtained by The Press-Register.

Haas told the Press-Register that his group doesn’t have any hard feelings towards Brown. They just don’t know much about him, he said. Brown worked for the Senate Ethics Committee from 2000 until last year, when he took a job with the House ethics panel, officially known as the Committee on Standards on Official Conduct. He was an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District and a prosecutor in the Montgomery County district attorney’s office before coming to Washington.

The irony here is great. The country’s first African-American president, who hardly talked about racial issues in his campaign, is now undermining the fellow African-American Democrat on a racial issue, even though Davis headed up the Obama campaign in Alabama. What’s more, Attorney General Eric Holder’s own sister-in-law, Vivian Malone Jones, played a storied role in Alabama’s civil rights struggles. Jones, who is now deceased, was one of two of the first African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963, only to be blocked by then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

Is the White House’s thinking here that Alabama will never vote for a Democrat for president, so it’s okay to treat Davis like this? Politics sure ain’t for the faint-hearted. Artur Davis told The Press-Register that the White House will likely nominate a U.S. Attorney in the next few weeks to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Deborah Rhodes in April.