The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Judge rules Trump DOJ illegally fired James Comey’s daughter — orders back pay as appeal looms

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THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?

SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).

  • Obama-appointed federal Judge Jesse Furman ruled Monday that the Justice Department illegally fired Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, in July 2025.
  • Comey, who prosecuted high-profile Epstein, Maxwell and Diddy cases, was awarded retroactive reinstatement and back pay through December 20, 2025, when she took a private-sector job.
  • The judge rejected the administration’s sweeping interpretation of presidential firing powers. The DOJ disagrees and says it will appeal.

LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).

Another member of the Comey family is back in the headlines, and this time the Trump Justice Department is on the losing end of a federal court ruling.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled Monday that the administration illegally fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from her position as a Manhattan federal prosecutor.

And the judge didn’t merely criticize the dismissal. He ordered the government to reinstate her retroactively and provide back pay.

There is, however, a rather important wrinkle: Comey won’t actually be returning to her old desk.

She took a private-sector job in December 2025, so the court’s remedy covers the period between her firing on July 16, 2025, and December 20 of that year.

The ruling is a significant setback for the administration’s argument that the president possesses broad constitutional authority to remove federal prosecutors without being constrained by civil-service protections.

Furman, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2012, rejected that argument in a 55-page opinion.

“The Court concludes that Defendants are wrong,” the judge wrote.

He determined that the administration’s interpretation of Article II of the Constitution conflicted with established Supreme Court precedent and federal employment law.

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

But the Justice Department isn’t accepting the decision as the final word.

“The Department disagrees with this decision and will appeal in due course,” a DOJ spokesperson told Axios.

So the legal fight isn’t over.

Comey had spent nearly a decade working as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, one of the country’s most prominent federal prosecutorial offices. Her assignments included cases involving Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and former Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.

According to the court’s account, Comey consistently received excellent performance evaluations, including an “outstanding” rating from 2019 through 2024.

Then, on July 16, 2025, an email arrived from Justice Department headquarters in Washington. Her employment was terminated. The department cited Article II of the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

Comey subsequently sued, arguing that she had been dismissed because of her father, who has been one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent adversaries since Trump fired him as FBI director in 2017.

Her lawsuit also alleged that she may have been targeted because of her perceived political beliefs.

The administration defended the firing on constitutional and statutory grounds, arguing that Attorney General Pam Bondi possessed the authority to dismiss assistant U.S. attorneys.

Federal law does authorize the attorney general to remove assistant U.S. attorneys. But Judge Furman held that this authority must still be exercised consistently with the Civil Service Reform Act, which establishes procedural protections for covered federal employees.

Those protections generally require a valid employment-related reason, advance notice, and an opportunity to respond. The court concluded that the government had failed to comply with those requirements.

Furman also ruled that the dismissal violated the constitutional separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act, and Comey’s Fifth Amendment due-process rights.

But the judge did not establish that Trump personally ordered her removal to punish her father. Comey’s allegation of political retaliation is separate from the statutory violations that formed the basis for Monday’s ruling.

After her dismissal, Comey sent colleagues a farewell message warning about the consequences of allowing fear to influence prosecutorial decisions.

“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” she wrote in the message obtained by Politico.

She also warned that “fear is the tool of a tyrant,” language widely interpreted as criticism of the administration.

The Comey family has, of course, had a remarkably contentious relationship with Trump. James Comey was dismissed as FBI director in May 2017 during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Since then, the former FBI director has remained an outspoken Trump critic and has faced his own legal battles with the administration. His daughter has maintained that her professional career should not be affected by her father’s political disputes.

Her lawyers celebrated Monday’s decision as a victory for the rule of law and the constitutional system of checks and balances.

The Justice Department plans to challenge the ruling.

DBS WIRE SOURCES (I’ve got all day).

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