A former top prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan and White Plains has won her wrongful termination lawsuit against the Trump Administration that alleged she was axed for political reasons as the daughter of ex-FBI chief and Trump adversary James Comey.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled on Monday, Oct. 26, that Maurene Comey's termination was unlawful, that the Department of Justice had violated her rights by ignoring due process protections of the Civil Service Reform Act even though the Attorney General had the authority to fire her.
He ordered Comey's reinstatement and backpay from July 16, 2025, the date of termination, through Dec. 20, 2025, after which she took a job as partner in the Manhattan law firm of Patterson
Belknap Webb & Tyler.
In her 10 years in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Comey helped prosecute some of its most high-profile cases, including those against sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein before his suicide; Epstein's assistant Ghislaine Maxwell; Sean "Diddy" Combs; and U.S. Senator Robert Menendez.
In White Plains federal court, she led the team that won a conviction of ex-Briarcliff Manor police officer Nicholas Tartaglione three years ago in the 2016 quadruple homicide of four men in Orange County after the ex-cop suspected one of the men of stealing money in a drug deal.
Tartaglione and Epstein were coincidentally cellmates at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan when Epstein unsuccessfully attempted suicide two and a half weeks before he killed himself in a second attempt.
Even as they sought to have her lawsuit dismissed, lawyers for the DOJ acknowledged that Maurene Comey's overall rating on performance appraisals was "outstanding," Furman noted. The reviews called her "a brilliant lawyer and a gifted supervisor," said she was the prosecutor tapped "when legal excellence is a must" and that she was assigned the highest profile cases "because her judgment, work product and courtroom advocacy are among the finest in the country."
The administration never claimed she was fired for cause, only that it had the authority to terminate her under a law allowing the Attorney General to remove line prosecutors. They also argued that even if the firing was not so authorized, the limitations imposed by Congress in the civil service reform act intruded on the executive branch's powers under Article II of the Constitution.
Furman found that the Attorney General may fire prosecutors but has to follow the CSRA in doing so in a certain manner and for proper reasons. He also found that Supreme Court precedent allows Congress under the Appointments Clause to restrict the removal of so-called "inferior officers" not directly appointed by the president.
The lawsuit alleged that it was primarily because she was James Comey's daughter that she was let go. He was fired by Trump during the president's first term, excoriated for the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election that Trump won.
James Comey has also come to epitomize how the Department of Justice under Trump has gone after the president's enemies.
He was charged last year with making false statements to Congress about leaks to the media but the charges were dismissed because the U.S. Attorney who obtained the indictment was a White House lawyer with no prosecutorial experience whose appointment was ruled unlawful.
Comey was subsequently charged with threatening the president when he posted on social media a photo of himself with seashells arrayed to read "86 47." Trump is the 47th president and 86 is slang for getting rid of something - with government prosecutors alleging it was a threat to get rid of the president permanently. That case is pending and Comey has pleaded not guilty.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Comey's daughter, fed prosecutor in White Plains, wins lawsuit vs Trump
