Although Michael Moore, the new U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, knows that much of his job is administrative, he doesn’t plan on staying out of the courtroom, the Macon Telegraph reported.

Moore was sworn in Oct. 6, 2010, after his September 2009 nomination languished in the Senate for about a year before he was confirmed.

Michael Moore (Andrew Ramonas/Main Justice)

Main Justice reported on possible reasons for the delay on the Senate vote, including his peripheral involvement in a fraud cause and a delay in paperwork being returned to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Since taking over the office four months ago, Moore has met with staff members  in the U.S. Attorney’s office and at the U.S. District Court, the newspaper reported. He also has established goals for the office, including an increased emphasis on prosecuting cases that could result in forfeitures, child sex cases, health care fraud, public corruption and gun and drug cases.

Moore also told the newspaper that he’s “committed to making an immediate local impact,â€� and is reaching out to rural law enforcement and prosecutors to let them know of their allies in the U.S. Attorney’s office.

As for being out of the courtroom since taking over his new post, Moore said, “I’m going through a little bit of withdrawal.� He added that he hopes to try some cases and stay “plugged in,� the Macon Telegraph reported.

Michael J. Moore

Michael J. Moore (Mercer University, Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law) is nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. He would replace Frank Maxwell Wood who was U.S. Attorney from 2001 until July 31, 2009. After resigning, Wood announced his candidacy for Georgia attorney general. The district’s current acting U.S. Attorney is G.F. Pete Peterman III.

His vitals:

• Born in Atlanta in 1968.
• Has owned his private law practice in Warner Robins, Ga., since 2005.
• Has been an administrative law judge for the city of Warner Robins since 2004.
• Was a state senator in Georgia from 2002 to 2003. In 2001, he ran in a special election, which he won in a run-off election. He lost re-election the following year.
• Served as chief financial officer and secretary of his wife’s at-home physical therapy practice, Kids Need Moore, Inc., from 2000 until earlier this year.
• Was a partner at Clarke, Moore and Hall, P.C. in Warner Robins, Ga., from 1997 to 2005.
• Worked as the chief/assistant district attorney in the Houston Judicial Circuit in Perry, Ga., from 1993 to 1997. He previously clerked in the office from 1992 to 1993. In 2004, he unsuccessfully ran for Houston County district attorney.
• Clerked for the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Middle District of Georgia in Macon, Ga., from 1991 to 1992.
• Worked as an insurance fraud/claims investigator at Equifax Services, Inc. in Atlanta from 1989 to 1990.
• Has tried between 100 and 120 cases to verdict or judgment. Approximately one-third of the cases were handled with co-counsel while he served as sole counsel in the remainder.

Click here for his full Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

On his Office of Government Ethics financial disclosure Moore earned $448,500 as an executor fee from the Beatrice Buice Estate. He also reports liabilities of between $270,005 and $630,000 for two credit lines and three loans for business, investment and partnership.

UPDATE: On his Senate Judiciary financial disclosure Moore reported assets valued at $2.3 million, mostly from real estate and assets “due from others,” and $1.2 million in liabilities for a net worth of $1.1 million.

Frank Maxwell Wood (DOJ)

A former Republican U.S. Attorney seeking to become Georgia’s attorney general said Thursday if he held the post now he would have joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health care law, The Athens Banner-Herald reported.

During a Thursday campaign debate at the University of Georgia, Frank Maxwell Wood, who headed the Middle District of Georgia U.S. Attorneys office from 2001 until 2009, and former Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens both said they would have joined in the lawsuit if they were in office. Both are seeking the Republican nomination to run for attorney general in November.

After President Barack Obama signed the health care legislation into law late last month, the attorneys general of 13 states filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new law. The suit, spearheaded by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum (R), was filed in the Northern District of Florida. Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli (R) has filed a separate federal suit challenging the law.

Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker (D), a candidate for governor this year, has come under fire from Republicans for refusing Gov. Sonny Perdue’s (R) request that Georgia join the lawsuit. Baker has said the case made by the attorneys general is weak and that joining the lawsuit would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. The governor has vowed to go around Baker and hire outside counsel to challenge the law, according to the newspaper.

During the debate Thursday, Wood said if elected he would create a division within his office to challenge the new health care law.

“This is a huge, huge step toward socialism that we need to push back on,” Wood said, according to the newspaper. “I think this is a battle we’ll be fighting for years.”

Olens added that an individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. “This is an unprecedented federal directive,” he said. “You’re taxing someone for doing nothing.”

Although both candidates disagreed with Baker’s decision not to join the suit, they said they supported his right to do so.

“Ultimately, the attorney general makes his or her own decisions on this type of litigation,” Wood said.

However, both Wood and Olens were critical of Baker’s tenure as attorney general. The two candidates will go head-to-head in the July 20 primary and the winner will face the winner of the Democratic primary — state Rep. Rob Teilhet or former Dougherty County District Attorney Ken Hodges.

Wood, a Bush appointee, headed U.S. Attorney’s office until July 31, 2009. G.F. “Peteâ€� Peterman III became the acting U.S. Attorney for the district after Wood stepped down. Obama has nominated Michael Moore to become the district’s next U.S. Attorney. Moore’s confirmation process appears to have stalled; his nomination has been pending for nearly 200 days — longer than any other Obama U.S. Attorney nominee.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hasn’t received a completed questionnaire from a U.S. Attorney nominee in Georgia, which appears to have contributed to a delay in his confirmation process.

Michael Moore was nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia on Sept. 17. A few days later, on Sept. 21, the former Georgia state senator and lawyer in Houston County, Ga., submitted a financial disclosure report to the executive branch’s Office of Government Ethics (OGE).

U.S. Attorney nominees typically submit a more detailed disclosure of their finances and covering their professional histories to the Senate panel around the same time as they make the OGE disclosure, records show. The committee must have the completed questionnaire before it can clear a nominee for a Senate confirmation vote.

Moore told a Georgia newspaper in an article published Dec. 7 that he sent off his paperwork. But Senate Judiciary Committee spokesperson Erica Chabot said the committee has not received it.

DOJ spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said after U.S. Attorney nominees work with the Justice Department to complete all forms, the department sends them to OGE and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Moore, who’s been in private practice for 12 years, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Four other nominees — Carmen Ortiz of Massachusetts, Ed Tarver of the Southern District of Georgia, Nicholas A. Klinefeldt of the Southern District of Iowa and Stephanie M. Rose of the Northern District of Iowa — were nominated on the same day or after Moore. All have been confirmed by the Senate. Tarver is the only U.S. Attorney from Georgia who has been confirmed.

In his OGE disclosure, Moore reported earning $1.2 million between Jan. 1, 2008, and Sept. 15, 2009, from his law firm, Michael J. Moore, P.C.

He also reported earning $448,500 as an executor for the estate of his aunt, Beatrice Buice.

The Buices are a prominent family in Georgia and owned large tracts of land in several counties in the northern part of the state. Buice was the wife of Glenn Buice, who passed away in 1987, according to legal documents filed with Forsyth County, Ga. A Buice family member said Moore was Glenn Buice’s nephew.

In her will, Buice left half of her estate to a niece and nephew, and designated the other half to be split between three sisters-in-law. She also left $10,000 to the Sharon Baptist Church in memory of her late husband.

Moore was not a beneficiary of the will, which was filed in Forsyth County, Ga. The will does not does not detail Buice’s assets or net worth.

Buice “had no idea how much she was worth,” according to her sister-in-law Martha Buice Brown, another beneficiary of the estate. “She turned it all over to [Moore].” Buice Brown praised Moore, saying he is “an amazing fellow” and “just wonderful.”

Buice owned at least three large properties, records show.  One of the properties was the couple’s home on 77 acres in Forsyth County. Two years after Buice’s March 2007 death, Moore, as executor of her estate, sold about 39 acres of the property to Forsyth County for $3.8 million, according to county records.

After the property was sold, Moore distributed the money from its sale to Buice’s beneficiaries, according to multiple recipients. One of the beneficiaries told Main Justice she received about $75,000 from the sale.

Buice’s estate also includes 565.21 acres of timberland in Houston County, Ga., which she purchased in 2005 for $2.4 million and less than one-fifth of an acre in Hilton Head, S.C., which has a market value of nearly $1 million, according to county property records. None of those properties have been sold since Buice’s death

If confirmed, Moore would succeed Frank Maxwell Wood in the Macon, Ga.-based district. Wood resigned in July.

President Obama tapped a former state senator, a state lawmaker and a federal prosecutor for U.S. Attorney posts in Georgia and Massachusetts today.

They are:

-Michael Moore (Middle District of Georgia): The former Georgia state senator and lawyer in Houston County, Ga., would replace Frank Maxwell Wood, who resigned in July. Read our previous report on Moore here.

Ed Tarver (Tarverforgeorgiasenate.com)

-Ed Tarver (Southern District of Georgia): The Georgia state senator and partner at Augusta, Ga. law firm Hull, Towill, Norman, Barrett & Salley would succeed Edmund A. Booth Jr., who resigned earlier this month. Read more about Tarver here.

Carmen Ortiz (Adelphi Univ.)

-Carmen M. Ortiz (Massachusetts): The Massachusetts Assistant U.S. Attorney would replace Michael J. Sullivan, who stepped down in April to join a law firm headed by former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Read our previous report on the nominee here.

Obama has now made 21 U.S. Attorney nominations. The Senate has confirmed 11 U.S. Attorneys. The Senate Judiciary Committee has yet to consider the 10 remaining nominees.

A former Georgia state senator, Michael Moore, is being vetted for the Middle District of Georgia U.S. Attorney position, a newspaper in Macon, Ga. reports.

The paper found out because an FBI agent doing a background check asked the Macon City Council clerk for assistance, and the clerk emailed all 15 members of the city council announcing that Moore was being vetted for the U.S. Attorney job.

Moore, a Democrat, practices law in Houston County, Ga., and is a former assistant district attorney. It’s unclear at this point who recommended him to the White House, as Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, are both Republicans. The newspaper article had no biographical information on Moore. If anyone would like to help us fill in the blanks, please email us at editors@mainjustice.com.