An Obama-appointed New York federal judge ruled the Trump Justice Department broke the law by firing James Comey’s prosecutor daughter and brushed aside the administration’s claim of sweeping removal power under Article II.
Judge Jesse Furman held Monday that the department unlawfully removed longtime assistant U.S. attorney Maurene Comey, ordered her retroactive reinstatement, and awarded back pay through the date she took another job.
Fox News reported the ruling out of New York federal court, where Furman rejected the government’s argument that the attorney general’s Article II authority left Congress powerless to regulate the firing of assistant U.S. attorneys.
The Justice Department has already signaled it disagrees and will appeal.
Furman, nominated in 2011 by President Obama, wrote that the administration’s position collided with long-settled limits on removal power.
In the opinion, the judge stated: “Defendants’ argument that [Constitution] Article II bars Congress from regulating the removal of AUSAs (assistant U.S. attorneys) flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.”
He added that accepting the claim would “unsettle the very equilibrium established by this nation's constitutional system.”
Federal law gives the attorney general authority to fire assistant U.S. attorneys. Furman ruled the Civil Service Reform Act still places limits on that power. The statute generally requires cause for termination plus basic procedural protections, notice and a chance to respond.
Court filings show the government itself conceded the removal was not based on misconduct or poor performance. Maurene Comey received neither advance notice nor an opportunity to answer the decision.
That concession left the department resting almost entirely on a constitutional claim of unchecked executive authority. Furman refused it.
The judge ordered Comey retroactively reinstated and awarded back pay running through July 20, 2025, the date she accepted another job.
A DOJ spokesperson told Fox News Digital the department disagreed with the decision and will appeal it in “due course.”
Maurene Comey’s attorneys called the outcome “hard-earned” for their client and for civil servants generally. In a statement to The Associated Press they said: “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.”
She had served roughly a decade in the Southern District of New York, the same Manhattan office where her father once worked as a top prosecutor early in the George W. Bush years. Her docket included the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution and the Sean “P. Diddy” Combs sex-trafficking trial.
Maurene Comey sued the Trump administration on Monday, Sept. 15, over the abrupt firing earlier this year.
Her father, former FBI Director James Comey, was terminated by President Trump in 2017 during the Russia collusion investigation. He later posted a photo of seashells arranged on a beach to spell “86 47.” Critics read the numbers as restaurant slang for getting rid of something paired with a reference to Trump as the 47th president.
Furman himself previously served as a federal prosecutor in the same Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office. He has also recently rebuked the Trump administration in litigation over efforts to deport pro-Palestinian Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil; the government sought a venue change to New Jersey after that clash.
His brother, Jason Furman, chaired the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration.
The core fight is straightforward. The administration argued Article II gives the attorney general power to remove assistant U.S. attorneys without the cause-and-process constraints of the Civil Service Reform Act. Furman held Congress lawfully cabined that authority and that the firing violated the statute’s requirements.
Because the department admitted the move was not performance-based and skipped notice and response, the constitutional theory became the entire defense. The judge rejected it as incompatible with nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.
The ruling restores Maurene Comey to her prior status on paper and covers back pay only until she landed other employment. It does not end the case. The Justice Department’s promised appeal will test whether higher courts agree that civil-service protections for assistant U.S. attorneys survive a direct Article II challenge.
Career prosecutors are not a separate fourth branch of government, yet statutes still set the rules for how they can be removed. An Obama-appointed judge just enforced those rules against a Trump Justice Department that openly declined to claim cause. The appellate courts will decide who has the final word.
