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.”

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

Ron Machen (Wilmer Hale)

President Barack Obama on Wednesday sent seven U.S. Attorneys nominations to the Senate.

The year-end cluster of nominations brings the number of U.S. Attorney nominations Obama has made this year to 42.

In comparison, President George W. Bush had nominated more than 60 U.S. Attorneys and President Bill Clinton more than 70 U.S. Attorneys by this time in their first terms.

Here are the nominations, from the White House news release:

André Birotte Jr.: Nominee for the Central District of California

Birotte works for the Los Angeles Police Commission, where he has been Inspector General since 2003 and served as an Assistant Inspector General from 2001 to 2003.  From 1995 to 1999, Birotte served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California.   He started his legal career as a Deputy Public Defender in the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office, serving from 1991 to 1995.  Birotte graduated from Tufts University in 1987 and Pepperdine University School of Law 1991.

David A. Capp: Nominee for the Northern District of Indiana

Capp has been an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana for 24 years and has served as Interim United States Attorney since 2007.   He previously served as interim United States Attorney in 1993 and from 1999 to 2001.  Prior to his federal service, he worked as an associate at Cohen and Thiros from 1977 to 1985, becoming a partner in 1984.  Capp graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1972 and the Valparaiso University School of Law in 1977.

Richard S. Hartunian: Nominee for the Northern District of New York

Hartunian has been an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York since 1997.  From 1990 to 1997, Hartunian worked both as an Assistant District Attorney for the Office of the District Attorney in Albany County, N.Y., and as a partner at Hartunian and Clark.  Prior to that, he was an associate attorney at Devine, Piedmont and Rutnik.  Hartunian graduated from Georgetown University in 1983 and the Albany Law School of Union University in 1986.

William Hochul leaving the Buffalo court house in 2002 after bail hearings for the "Lackawana Six." (Getty Images)

William J. Hochul Jr.: Nominee for the Western District of New York

Hochul has been an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of New York for 18 years, serving as Chief of the National Security Division since 2007 and Chief of the Anti-Terrorism Unit from 2002 to 2007.  From 1981 to 1991, he was an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.  Prior to that, Hochul was an associate at Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley & Casey from 1985 to 1987.  Following law school, he was a law clerk for Judge James F. Couch Jr., of the Maryland Court of Appeals from 1984 to 1985.  Hochul graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1981 and the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1984.

Ronald C. Machen, Jr.: Nominee for the District of Columbia

Machen, whose nomination we reported yesterday, is a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where he has worked since 2001.  From 1997 to 2001, Machen served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.  Prior to that, Machen was a law clerk for Judge Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals, for the Sixth Circuit, from 1995 to 1996.  Immediately following law school, he was an associate at Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering from 1994 to 1995. Machen graduated from Stanford University in 1991 and Harvard Law School in 1994.

Anne M. Tompkins: Nominee for the Western District of North Carolina

Tompkins is a partner at Alston & Bird, LLP, where she has worked since 2005.  From 2000 to 2005, she was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, serving as Deputy Criminal Chief from 2002 to 2004 and on detail in the Regime Crimes Liaison Office in Baghdad, Iraq, from 2004 to 2005.  Tompkins graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1984, the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina in 1989 and the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1992.

Sally Quillian Yates: Nominee for the Northern District of Georgia

Yates is the Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, where she has worked since 1989.  She served in that office as an Assistant United States Attorney from 1989 to 1994, Chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Unit from 1994 to 2002, and First Assistant United States Attorney from 2002 to 2009. She had a previous stint as Acting United States Attorney in 2004.  From 1986 to 1989, she was an associate at King & Spalding.  Yates graduated from the University of Georgia in 1982 and the University of Georgia School of Law in 1986.

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.