Donald Trump's DOJ Illegally Fired James Comey's Daughter, Federal Judge Rules in Major Legal Dispute

A federal judge has determined that the Justice Department illegally fired Maurene Comey, a former federal prosecutor and the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.

On Monday, October 26, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York ruled that Maurene’s July 2025 firing violated her constitutional right to due process, according to a report.

The U.S. Department of Justice argued that its actions were permissible under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which provides for presidential authority. The department also sought to have Maurene’s lawsuit dismissed, arguing she should have taken her complaint to the Merit Systems Protection Board instead, but Furman found that the federal court had jurisdiction over her claim because her firing rested on Article II.

Furman, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote in his 55-page opinion that the government’s defense “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.”

He added, “Indeed, to accept Defendants’ argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system,” and he wrote that the department “invented a new and expansive theory of executive power,” according to NPR.

Furman ordered Maurene’s retroactive reinstatement as an assistant U.S. attorney so she can receive the back pay and retirement benefits she earned. “The Court grants Comey retroactive reinstatement and backpay effective from the date of her termination through December 20, 2025, which will make her whole for the period during which she was unlawfully terminated,” the ruling said.

The Justice Department has said it intends to appeal Furman’s decision. “The department disagrees with this decision and will appeal in due course,” a spokesperson said, though the department can’t appeal yet because Furman hasn’t ruled on whether Maurene was fired for political speech protected by the First Amendment.

Maurene spent about 10 years as a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she worked on prosecutions of several high-profile defendants, including Jeffrey Epstein, his associate Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean “Diddy” Combs, according to CNBC. The Justice Department abruptly fired her in July 2025, without giving a reason.

Maurene claimed in her lawsuit that she was probably fired because Donald dislikes her father. “Ms. Comey’s termination, without cause, without advance notice, and without any opportunity to contest it, was unlawful and unconstitutional,” her attorneys wrote in the complaint.

Donald fired James as FBI director in 2017, and he has been charged in two separate cases during Donald’s second term. The first case, which accused him of lying to Congress, was dismissed because a judge found that the prosecutor who secured the charges hadn’t been lawfully appointed.

James has denied wrongdoing in the second case. He’s been a longtime adversary of Donald, and Reuters described the first case as one of the Trump administration's highest-profile uses of law enforcement to target perceived political enemies.