A federal decide in New York on Monday dominated towards President Donald Trump and the Justice Division over the firing of Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from the Manhattan U.S. legal professional’s workplace.
Decide Jesse Furman stated Comey’s termination violated civil service guidelines.
“Sure, the Legal professional Normal is permitted by legislation to take away an AUSA. However the Legal professional Normal (and anybody to whom the Legal professional Normal delegates that authority) can also be restricted by legislation, particularly the CSRA, to take action solely in a selected method and just for sure causes,” the decide wrote.
Furman ordered Maurene Comey, who most lately led the prosecution of Sean “Diddy” Combs, reinstated with again pay.
Along with calling her termination illegal, Furman determined Trump and the DOJ violated the separation of powers, the Administrative Process Act and Maurene Comey’s due course of rights.
“The Division disagrees with this determination and can enchantment in the end,” a DOJ spokesperson informed ABC Information.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York declined to remark.
ABC Information has reached out to Maurene Comey for remark.
Furman’s ruling outlines that Maurene Comey’s reinstatement applies from the date of her termination in July of 2025 till December, when she successfully resigned from her position by accepting a brand new job within the personal sector.
In ordering Maurene Comey’s reinstatement, Furman rejected what he described because the Trump administration’s “sweeping and unprecedented principle of govt authority.”
Daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, Maurene Comey, leaves the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse, November 13, 2025 in Alexandria, Virginia.
Alex Wong/Getty Photos
The Trump administration had argued that not solely was Maurene Comey’s firing lawful beneath federal statute, however that the legal guidelines defending civil servants had been additionally an unconstitutional intrusion into Trump’s authority.
“The query on the coronary heart of this case is whether or not these limitations on the elimination of Assistant United States Attorneys are according to Article II and the constitutional separation of powers,” Decide Furman wrote.
To make its argument, the DOJ pointed to the Supreme Court docket’s determination in Trump v. Slaughter — the place the justices successfully supercharged presidential energy by greenlighting the firing of the leaders of impartial federal companies — and the Trump v. United States immunity case
“On their view, AUSAs who characterize the US in prison circumstances in courtroom train prosecutorial and investigatory capabilities that fall squarely inside the President’s ‘conclusive and preclusive’ powers,” Furman wrote. “Accordingly, they argue, the President — and, by extension, the heads of departments appointed by the President — will need to have the facility to take away such AUSAs for any cause or no cause in any respect.”
However Furman rejected the DOJ’s interpretation of the authorized precedent, pointing to a long time of different circumstances which affirm the authorized protections for line prosecutors. He additionally famous that neither case cited by the DOJ applies to inferior officers or “helps their sweeping and unprecedented principle of govt authority.”
“Defendants’ argument is opposite to an unbroken line of Supreme Court docket selections relationship again virtually two centuries, and the Supreme Court docket itself has not formally overruled any of these selections. That’s ample, in itself, to reject the argument,” wrote Decide Furman.
To simply accept the DOJ’s argument, Furman wrote, would “unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.”
Maurene Comey was an assistant U.S. legal professional who efficiently prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell, the previous affiliate of intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein, and a number of gang members earlier than the break up verdict final 12 months within the trial of Combs, who was convicted of a prostitution-related cost however acquitted of extra severe expenses.
She was additionally concerned within the workplace’s case towards Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 at New York Metropolis’s Metropolitan Correctional Heart whereas he was awaiting trial on federal intercourse trafficking expenses.
Trump fired James Comey throughout his first time period in workplace after Comey introduced publicly that Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign was being investigated over potential ties to Russia.
Previous to Maurene Comey’s firing, Trump privately vented about having a Comey work in his administration, sources beforehand informed ABC Information.
Earlier this 12 months, Furman blocked the Justice Division’s try to maneuver Maurene Comey’s lawsuit over her firing as a federal prosecutor out of courtroom.
The Justice Division argued on the time that her case belongs earlier than the Benefit Programs Safety Board and never in federal district courtroom.
Furman determined the case belongs with him as a result of Maurene Comey was fired pursuant to the president’s govt authority and never the same old procedures for civil servants.
“Maurene Comey was, by all accounts, an exemplary Assistant United States Legal professional. In her practically ten years working at the US Legal professional’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York, she was assigned among the nation’s highest profile circumstances, and she or he constantly obtained the best accolades from supervisors and friends alike,” the decide’s opinion in April stated.
The DOJ, in courtroom filings, has characterised Comey’s case as routine.
“A federal worker’s claims that elimination from federal service was arbitrary and capricious or performed in a fashion that didn’t present the method to which they contend they had been due just isn’t a novel situation,” authorities attorneys beforehand stated.
Following her termination final 12 months, Maurene Comey informed colleagues in a farewell electronic mail that she was fired as a federal prosecutor with out being informed a cause however urged them to not succumb to the “worry” she stated her firing may trigger.
“If a profession prosecutor will be fired with out cause, worry might seep into the choice of those that stay,” Comey stated in her electronic mail, a replica of which was obtained by ABC Information. “Don’t let that occur.”
It is a creating story. Please verify again for updates.
