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Politics

Judge rules Trump administration's firing of prosecutor Maurene Comey was unlawful

US District Judge Jesse Furman ruled on Monday that the Trump administration unlawfully fired federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, ordering her reinstatement with back pay; the Justice Department said it disagreed and would appeal.

By James Calloway · · 1 min read

A US federal judge ruled on Monday that the Trump administration unlawfully fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, from her post as a federal prosecutor in New York, and ordered her reinstatement with back pay.

US District Judge Jesse M. Furman, in a 55-page decision, rejected the government’s argument that federal prosecutors exercise the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers and can therefore be removed without cause. “The Court concludes the Defendants are wrong,” Furman wrote, adding that the claim “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.”

Comey, an assistant US attorney for nearly a decade at the Manhattan US Attorney’s office, was fired in July 2025. She had worked on high-profile cases including those against Ghislaine Maxwell, the associate of Jeffrey Epstein, and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, and had consistently received “the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike”, the judge noted.

She sued the Justice Department, alleging she was fired because she is the daughter of James Comey, a longtime critic of President Donald Trump, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, in violation of the separation of powers, the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Furman held that Comey was an “inferior” officer subject to limits Congress placed on removal, and that accepting the government’s argument “would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system”.

The Justice Department said it disagreed with the decision and would appeal. Comey’s lawyers called the ruling a reaffirmation of checks and balances, saying: “The president is not above the law.”

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