NY judge rules prosecutor Maurene Comey's firing by Trump administration was unlawful

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Oct 26, 2026

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NEW YORK — The Trump administration’s unceremonious firing of veteran Manhattan prosecutor Maurene Comey was unconstitutional and flew in the face of “nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent,” a federal judge ruled Monday.

The decision came in a September 2025 suit that Comey, a highly respected former fed, brought against Trump’s Justice Department, alleging her firing last summer was carried out solely because her father, former FBI Director James Comey, is one of the president’s staunchest critics.

In his 55-page opinion, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jesse Furman found that the DOJ had violated the separation of powers that regulate the removal of federal employees, the Administrative Procedure Act, and Comey’s Fifth Amendment due process rights in abruptly firing her as an assistant U.S. attorney.

The judge additionally found that the DOJ had “indisputably” violated the Civil Service Reform Act, which limits when and how federal prosecutors and other executive branch employees may be removed from office.

“Defendants’ argument that Article II bars Congress from regulating the removal of (federal prosecutors) flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent,” Furman wrote in his opinion, ordering Comey be retroactively reinstated and receive back pay for the period between her dismissal and hiring in private practice in December.

“To accept Defendants’ argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system,” the judge wrote.

Comey’s lawyers, Ellen Blain, Nicole Gueron, Deepa Vanamali, and Margaret Donovan, in a statement, said, “This hard-earned victory belongs to Ms. Comey, to all civil servants, and to all fighting for the rule of law. As the Court correctly held, to accept the government’s argument about unlimited executive power ‘would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.’

“This decision reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances: the President is not above the law.”

Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald, whose office is defending the DOJ in the suit, declined to comment.

A spokesperson at the DOJ’s main headquarters said, “The Department disagrees with this decision and will appeal in due course.”

In an email, the DOJ noted Furman did not rule on Comey’s pending First Amendment claim, stopping the government from appealing until there is further briefing and Furman enters a final judgment in the suit.

Comey filed suit in September, two months after she was fired as a senior trial counsel in the Southern District of New York, following a decade-long tenure in which she took the lead in some of the office’s most high-stakes cases, including in the prosecutions of notorious sexual predators like Jeffrey Epstein, his imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and convicted rap entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs.

The DOJ has not argued in the lawsuit that Comey’s approach to her work was an issue — conceding that her performance reviews indicated she was, in fact, an outstanding prosecutor — rather that the attorney general has the power to remove a line prosecutor without cause, unrestrained by Congress, among other positions.

The judge disagreed.

“From at least the early nineteenth century until shortly after the Civil War, federal employment was a product of the ‘spoils system,’ under which ‘federal employees came and went, depending upon party service and changing administrations, rather than meritorious performance,'” the judge wrote.

Furman later added that to accept the government’s legal position would “risk a return to the spoils system that Congress has sought to end since the nineteenth century.”

Comey’s dismissal came in the wake of widely criticized charges that Trump’s DOJ brought against her father in relation to an Instagram post published by the former head of the FBI depicting a formation of seashells on the beach, arranged to spell out “86 47,” which Trump and his allies claimed intended to threaten the president’s life.

To “86” something has several slang definitions, including to ban a customer, or generally eject, dismiss, or remove someone, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary; Trump is the 47th president of the U.S. James Comey vehemently denies there were violent undertones in his social media post and has moved to dismiss the case.

In an email to her colleagues after her firing, which was shared with The News, Comey warned of a dark new era.

“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought,” Comey wrote.

“Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else.”

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