The Fox News affiliate in Atlanta profiled new Northern District of Georgia U.S. Attorney Sally Yates.

Here’s the clip:

Sally Yates (DOJ)

Although Sally Quillian Yates has handled cases on numerous topics, public corruption are still her first love, the new U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia told The Gainsville Times in a profile published Sunday.

“I’m a firm believer that how we go about doing our job here and how we represent the people in an honorable way is much more important than what the ultimate resolution of the case is,” Yates said, adding, that public corruption cases hold a “special place in my heart.”

Yates has served in the Atlanta-based Northern District office since 1989. She was confirmed as the new U.S. Attorney in March. During her tenure with the office she has handled the corruption trial of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell and the case against Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph.

“I think it oftentimes falls to the U.S. Attorney’s office and the feds to be the ones looking out for cases on the corruption front, and to do it in a vigorous way that inspires confidence” she said.

Yates believes her first trial may have been her best. The case, which took place in the late 1980s, involved a disputed title to six acres of land between the county’s first landowning black family and a developer.  Yates ultimately won the case.

“That is the most meaningful case I could ever have,” she told the newspaper. “It gave me a taste for the value of being on the right side of truth and justice, of believing in your cause. Once you’ve tasted that, it’s hard to go back to representing any old client.”

Soon after that case, Yates joined the U.S. Attorney’s office she now heads. During her time in the office, she has served as acting U.S. Attorney, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, chief of the fraud and public corruption section and First Assistant U.S. Attorney.

“I’ve been very fortunate here to have been able to handle a wide variety of cases,” Yates told the newspaper, adding that she stayed in the office “longer than I ever anticipated … because of the satisfaction that comes from being on the side of justice.”

Among the challenges her office faces are drug trafficking cases, which have become a priority since Atlanta became a hub for the Mexican drug cartels, according to Yates. Gangs are also a priority.

Yates also has made sex trafficking, child exploitation, weapons cases and other violent crimes high priorities. But because of the size of the office — 89 prosecutors representing an area with about 6.5 million people — prosecutors need to be selective about cases, she said.

“We really have to pick and choose the cases we’re prosecuting to try to have the greatest impact on the district, both in terms of getting offenders off the streets and sending a deterrence message to stem the tide,” Yates aid.

Kent Alexander, who served as the district’s U.S. Attorney in the 1990s and worked with Yates for several years, said she is up to the task.

“She is absolutely a top-notch prosecutor and I don’t think President Obama could have made a better decision,” he told the newspaper, adding, “She’s been in the courtroom, she’s managed, and she’s led, and most importantly, she has excellent judgment. Bottom line, she’s a star.”

Sally Quillian Yates (University of Georgia, University of Georgia School of Law) is nominated to replace David E. Nahmias as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. Nahmias resigned Aug. 30, 2009 to join the state Supreme Court, a position to which he was named by Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Her vitals:

• Born in Atlanta, Ga., in 1960.
• Has worked in the Northern District of Georgia office since 1989. Currently is serving as acting U.S. Attorney. Has also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, chief of the fraud and public corruption section, First Assistant U.S. Attorney and previously served another stint as acting U.S. Attorney.
• Was an associate at King & Spalding in Atlanta from 1986 to 1989. Also was a summer associate in 1985
• Worked as a summer associate at Troutman, Sanders Lockerman and Ashmore in Atlanta in 1985.
• Was a summer associate at Swift, Currie McGhee and Hiers in Atlanta in 1984.
• Served as a staff assistant to Rep. Jack Brinkley (D-Ga.) in Washington, D.C., from October 1981 to December 1982.
• Tried approximately 15 cases to verdict as sole or lead counsel.

Click here for her full Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

UPDATE: On her Senate Judiciary financial disclosure, Yates reported assets valued at $3.7 million including $2 million in securities and $1.2 million in real estate. She has $426,700 in liabilities and reports a net worth of $3.3 million.

On her Office of Government ethics disclosure, Yates did not report any real estate holdings.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has released questionnaires for an additional five U.S. Attorney nominees. Information from their Office of Government Ethics disclosures will be added as it becomes available.

• Sally Quillian Yates, Northern District of Georgia
• Anne M. Tompkins, Western District of North Carolina
• William J. Hochul, Jr., Western District of New York
• Andre Birotte Jr., Central District of California
• William N. Nettles, District of South Carolina

The Wall Street Journal fleshes out an earlier Atlanta Journal-Constitution report about the mysterious disappearance of acting U.S. Attorney Sally Yates’s name from the list of candidates for the Northern District of Georgia.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) called the White House earlier this year trying to block Yates’s appointment as the district’s top federal prosecutor, the Journal reported. Lewis withdrew his objections last month in a call to White House counsel Greg Craig after news media queries, the Journal reported, citing “two government officials with knowledge of the matter.”

Both the WSJ and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that Yates had prosecuted more than a dozen public officials in Atlanta in pay-to-play schemes, including a Lewis friend and political ally, Bill Campbell, who served as Atlanta’s mayor from 1994 to 2002.

According to the Journal:

[T]he story of Ms. Yates, 49 years old, illustrates that even after three years of controversy over allegations of partisan meddling in the work of U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration, politics remains part of the selection process.

The Justice Department is still trying to repair damage from the scandal that erupted after Bush administration officials ousted nine U.S. attorney appointees in 2006 to make way for new political favorites.

The Atlanta newspaper reported Sept. 5 that Yates “apparently was on the short list, then off, then on again.”

Lewis’s chief of staff, Michael Collins, denied in an interview with the Journal that Lewis had tried to scuttle Yates’s nomination. Collins told the newspaper that Georgia’s House members collectively had decided to remove Yates’s name from a list of three favored candidates.

An advisory panel appointed by Georgia’s six Democratic House members forwarded three recommended finalists in April, including Yates; Atlanta lawyer Jeffrey Berhold, a former antitrust lawyer at the Justice Department; and Christopher Twyman, a partner at the Cox Byington law firm in northwest Georgia.

“We wanted to dispel any notion, based on your questions, that we were blocking Sally Yates’s nomination,” Collins told the WSJ.

President Obama on Thursday announced his nominees for Georgia’s other two prosecuting districts. They are Michael Moore (Middle District of Georgia), a former Georgia state senator and lawyer in Houston County, Ga.; and Ed Tarver (Southern District of Georgia), a Georgia state senator and partner at Augusta, Ga. law firm Hull, Towill, Norman, Barrett & Salley.

U.S. Attorney recommendations for the Northern District of Georgia were submitted months ago, but one of the candidates has run into a few bumps, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last weekend.

Acting U.S. Attorney Sally Yates “apparently was on the short list, then off, then on again,” The Journal-Constitution said.

In April, a state screening panel told the Democratic members of Georgia’s congressional delegation that Yates, Atlanta lawyer Jeffrey Berhold and Rome, Ga., lawyer Christopher Twyman were its top choices to succeed U.S. Attorney David Nahmias, who resigned to take a seat on the Georgia supreme court. Because Georgia’s two U.S. senators are Republicans, the Democratic House members get to advise President Obama on the position.

But then, Yates mysteriously disappeared from the list of recommended candidates that the members of Congress sent to the White House in May, the newspaper reported. The lawmakers replaced her with another, unidentified candidate who was not recommended by the screening panel, according to the Journal-Constitution.

The White House then asked the Georgia Democrats to put Yates back on the list. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the senior Democrat in Georgia’s delegation, resubmitted her name this summer for consideration, according to The Journal-Constitution.

Former Rep. George “Buddy” Darden (D-Ga.), who chaired the screening panel, told the newspaper that “there is nothing unique” about the back-and-forth over the Yates recommendation.

Yates’ prosecution of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell in a public corruption case could be the source of some of her problems, according to the newspaper. Campbell once submitted a complaint about Yates to the Justice Department. The ex-mayor said the prosecutor was seeking revenge against him because he did not endorse her husband, Comer Yates, in a Democratic primary. The Justice Department did not find any evidence that Yates was trying to retaliate against Campbell, who was convicted on tax evasion charges.

The Journal-Constitution also speculated that Yates’s failure to donate to Obama’s presidential campaign might have hurt her chances. This doesn’t sound likely to us, since prosecutors are not supposed to appear partisan, and Yates’s husband more than made up for it by giving Obama $2,300. Twyman and his wife, by contrast, donated only $500 each. Berhold gave $2,000 to Obama, along with thousands of dollars to Georgia Democrats.

The White House could announce a nominee as early as this week, people close to the process told WABE News, the public broadcaster in Atlanta.