A federal judge in New York ruled Monday that the Trump Justice Department unlawfully fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from her job as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, according to NBC News and ABC News.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, granted Comey “retroactive reinstatement and backpay effective from the date of her termination through December 20, 2025,” NBC News reported, citing the ruling. That is the date she started a new job in the private sector, according to NBC News.
BREAKING: Maurene Comey, daughter of a former FBI director, was unlawfully fired by the Trump administration, a judge ruled. https://t.co/GxnNXGuo28
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 26, 2026
Comey had spent almost 10 years as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York before she was let go in July 2025, according to NBC News. According to NBC News, she worked on high-profile prosecutions including the case against former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and the cases involving Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
What the judge decided
Furman found that the firing violated the constitutional separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act, and Comey’s Fifth Amendment due process and statutory rights, according to NBC News and court reporting by Inner City Press. The judge rejected the administration’s claim that Article II of the Constitution lets it remove career prosecutors at will, The Hill reported.
“Defendants’ argument is contrary to an unbroken line of Supreme Court decisions dating back almost two centuries,” Furman wrote in his 55-page opinion, according to The Hill.
The Justice Department had argued that Congress’s limits on firing assistant U.S. attorneys are unconstitutional, pointing to the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down firing protections for independent agency leaders, The Hill reported. Furman said that decision covers principal officers and does not reach career prosecutors like Comey, according to The Hill.
“Congress granted the Attorney General power to remove Comey,” the judge wrote, but “Congress imposed limits on that power,” according to NBC News. The Justice Department said in an earlier court filing that Comey was removed at the direction of then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, NBC News reported.
She is not going back
Despite the reinstatement order, Comey has taken another job and will not return to the Justice Department, according to The Hill. The ruling restores her pay and pension credit for the roughly four months between her firing and her new job, and it orders her personnel file changed to show she resigned rather than was fired, The Hill reported.
The judge has not yet set the amount of back pay and has not decided whether Comey is owed attorneys’ fees, according to Inner City Press. The ruling did not address Comey’s First Amendment claims, The Hill reported.
Comey sued in September 2025, arguing the administration gave “no legitimate explanation” for her firing and acted because of President Trump’s long-running feud with her father, according to NBC News. Trump fired James Comey as FBI director in 2017.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, NBC News reported. The department could appeal the ruling to the Second Circuit.
The decision lands as the administration continues its separate criminal case against James Comey over a social media photo of seashells that prosecutors say amounted to a threat against Trump, according to NBC News. That case has been delayed until at least early 2027 while a judge weighs whether to dismiss it, NBC News reported.
The ruling is the latest clash between the administration and federal judges over how far a president’s power reaches to remove government employees, a fight that conservatives argue the Supreme Court has already been settling in the White House’s favor.
Sources
Sources cited
- https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/doj-justice-maurene-comey-court-reinstate-rcna605720
- https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6172624-maurene-comey-justice-department-unlawful-firing/
- https://abcnews.com/US/judge-reinstates-maurene-comey-after-ruling-firing-unlawful/story?id=137575599
- https://innercitypress.com/sdny11comeyvdojikcp102526.html
Sources
- Original post: The Associated Press (@AP) on X, Oct 26, 2026
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