Court Rejects Trump Firing Theory In Prosecutor Case

A federal judge has ordered the government to pay former Manhattan prosecutor Maurene Comey for the months after her firing, ruling that President Donald Trump's administration had no legal grounds to remove her from the Justice Department. US District Judge Jesse Furman issued the decision on Monday, granting back pay from her July 16, 2025, termination through December and ordering what he called retroactive reinstatement for that span.

Furman rejected the administration's argument that the president holds broad power to dismiss inferior officers without cause. The judge wrote that federal prosecutors are not an extension of the president's conclusive and preclusive authority. "To accept defendants' argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this nation's constitutional system," Furman wrote. He added that the administration had invented a new and expansive theory of executive power.

Comey had served as an assistant US attorney at the Justice Department's Manhattan office since 2015. Her docket included cases involving Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean "Diddy" Combs. She filed suit alleging that her termination violated federal statutes barring the political dismissal of civil servants and violated the separation of powers.

The Justice Department, under Trump, had countered that the president can fire federal employees without cause. After the ruling, the department said it disagrees with the decision and will appeal in due course.

Comey is the daughter of James Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 to 2017. Her lawyers argued that the dismissal stemmed from Trump's antipathy toward her father, who was fired during Trump's first term and has since become a prominent critic of the president.

Since returning to office for a second term, Trump has moved to reduce federal employment and remove prosecutors and investigators in cases he opposes. He has also pushed the Justice Department to pursue his critics. On September 20, 2025, he wrote on social media that there is a great case against James Comey and others, and added, "JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"

The Justice Department charged James Comey with lying to Congress shortly after that post. A judge dismissed the case in November after finding that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed. In April, Comey was charged in a separate case over a social media image of seashells arranged as "86 47"; the administration called it a threat, with 47 a reference to Trump as the 47th president. Comey has called the case political persecution.