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Washington — A national justice connected Monday recovered that the Justice Department unlawfully fired Maurene Comey, the girl of ex-FBI Director James Comey, from her station arsenic a national authoritative successful the Southern District of New York.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said successful a 55-page decision that Comey's removal violated the law separation of powers and national law. The justice retroactively reinstated Comey to her relation arsenic a national authoritative and ordered the Trump medication to supply her backpay from the date of her firing successful July 2025 done Dec. 20, erstwhile she accepted a antithetic job.
Comey's suit was 1 of respective filed by erstwhile authorities employees who were fired by President Trump without origin that tested the limits of the president's power to occurrence national officials.
The Trump medication had argued that Article II of the Constitution gives the president unrestricted removal power, and said Congress could not bounds the removal of national prosecutors.
But successful his decision, Furman ruled that Comey's firing violated the Civil Service Reform Act, a landmark instrumentality enacted successful 1978 that provides protections for national workers. The Trump administration, helium wrote, is attempting to "upend" long-settled lawsuit instrumentality allowing Congress to modulate the removal of alleged inferior officers.
"Indeed, to judge Defendants' statement would beryllium to unsettle the precise equilibrium established by this Nation's law system," Furman wrote.
Comey had served arsenic a national authoritative successful Manhattan since 2015, handling high-profile transgression cases against figures including Sean "Diddy" Combs, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and erstwhile Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.
In a missive to her erstwhile colleagues astatine the clip of her dismissal, Comey said she was "summarily fired via memo" by the Justice Department's office successful Washington, and was not fixed a crushed for her termination.
In September, Comey sued the Justice Department implicit her firing, alleging she had astir apt been fired due to the fact that Mr. Trump dislikes her father, who has been indicted doubly during the 2nd Trump administration.
"Ms. Comey's termination — without cause, without beforehand notice, and without immoderate accidental to contention it — was unlawful and unconstitutional," Comey's attorneys wrote successful their complaint.
The Trump medication attempted to dismiss the lawsuit connected the grounds that Comey was required to bring her claims earlier the Merit Systems Protection Board, the bureau tasked with adjudicating appeals from national employees regarding adverse actions taken against them, but Furman denied the government's question and allowed the lawsuit to continue.
Furman recovered that due to the fact that Comey's firing rested connected Article II of the Constitution — not a national instrumentality governing the civilian work — the national tribunal had jurisdiction to perceive the case.
In tribunal filings, the Justice Department admitted that Comey had received a standing of "outstanding" connected her show reviews from 2019 done 2024, but said that her firing had been carried retired nether the due ineligible authorization of then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.
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