Federal Judge Rules Justice Department Unlawfully Fired Maurene Comey

A federal judge in New York ruled Monday that the Justice Department under President Donald Trump unlawfully fired Maurene Comey, a longtime prosecutor and the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. The decision also rejected the administration's sweeping argument about the reach of presidential power.

In court filings, the Justice Department acknowledged that Comey's dismissal was not for cause and had nothing to do with her performance. It argued instead that the attorney general had authority to remove her under Article II of the Constitution.

Judge Jesse Furman, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, dismissed that position. He wrote that the argument that Article II bars Congress from regulating the removal of assistant U.S. attorneys "flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent." Accepting it, he added, would "unsettle the very equilibrium established by this nation's constitutional system."

Furman acknowledged that federal law gives the attorney general power to fire assistant U.S. attorneys. But he found that Congress limited that power through the Civil Service Reform Act, which generally requires cause for termination and provides procedural protections to government workers. The government conceded that her removal was not based on misconduct or poor performance, and she received no advance notice and no chance to respond.

The judge ordered Comey retroactively reinstated and awarded her back pay through Dec. 20, 2025, the date she accepted another job. A Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital the department disagreed with the ruling and would appeal in "due course."

Comey spent about a decade in the Southern District of New York, where she worked on some of the office's most prominent cases. They included the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, and the sex trafficking trial of rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.

Furman has also criticized the administration in the past, including during its attempt to deport Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, after which the federal government argued for moving the case to New Jersey. Nominated to the bench in 2011, he previously worked as a federal prosecutor in the same Manhattan office where both Comeys later served. His brother, Jason Furman, chaired the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration.

Maurene Comey is the second member of her family to be fired under Trump. The president dismissed her father as FBI director in 2017 during the Russia investigation. James Comey also served as the top prosecutor at the Southern District of New York early in the George W. Bush administration.

Her attorneys told The Associated Press the victory was "hard-earned" for their client and for all civil servants. "This decision reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances: the President is not above the law," they said.