Latest / Best of: Features / Judge: Trump DOJ illegally fired ex-FBI director's daughter, Maurene Comey, as a federal prosecutor

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Judge: Trump DOJ illegally fired ex-FBI director's daughter, Maurene Comey, as a federal prosecutor · Best of: Features

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  Judge Trump DOJ illegally fired X FBI director's daughter Mauraine Comey, as
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  a federal prosecutor, Written by Michael R. Sisak, Eric Tucker, Alana Durkin,
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  and Larry Neumeister. This article is being read by an automated voice
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  generated by Everlet. New York, the AP. The Trump’s administration illegally fired
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  Maureen Comey, the daughter of X FBI Director, Trump critic James Comey,
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  as a Justice Department prosecutor. A judge ruled Monday in a sharp
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  rebuke of the administration's authority to terminate career federal employees it dislikes.
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  The ruling is tailored to Maureen Comey, but its import stretches beyond
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  her case, repudiating the claim of President Donald Trump's administration that the
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  Constitution permits such firings for any reason. Administration officials have cited that
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  belief repeatedly in a sweeping purge of the Federal Workforce. Comey, an
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  assistant U.S. Attorney for a decade, was fired in july twenty twenty
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  five despite consistently receiving the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike,
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  Judge Jesse M. Furman found. The judge said her firing violated laws
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  passed by Congress that were intended to abolish the spoils system, under
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  which newly elected presidents regularly purged government workers and replaced them with
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  loyalists. Furman's decision didn't address the validity of Comey's claim that she
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  was fired because she is the daughter of James Comey, whom Trump
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  has long viewed as an enemy. Trump fired James Comey, as FBI
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  Director in may twenty seventeen, as the Bureau was investigating ties between
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  Russia and the Republicans successful twenty sixteen campaign for the White House.
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  Trump in the years since has repeatedly called for Comey to be
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  jailed, and his Justice
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  Department has worked with mixed success to make that happen. Hours after
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  Furman's ruling Monday, unsealed court filings showed that the Justice Department had
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  quietly brought another criminal case against James Comey, accusing him of leaking
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  classified information. Furman, who was nominated to the bench in twenty eleven
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  by then Democratic President Barack Obama, granted Moran Comy retroactive reinstatement and
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  back pay from the date of her firing through december twentieth, twenty
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  twenty five, when she began a new private sector job. In a
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  statement, the Justice Department said it disagreed with this decision, and would
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  appeal. Comey's lawyers Ellen Blaine, Nicole Gueron, Deepa Vannamali, and Margaret Donovan
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  lauded the ruling. His hard earned victory belongs to Miss Comey, to
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  all civil servants, and to all fighting for the rule of law,
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  they cited in a statement. This decision reaffirms our bedrock system of
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  checks and balances. The President is not above the law. Comey was
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  fired two weeks after leading the prosecution of music mogul Sean Diddy
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  Combs, which ended in a conviction on prostitution related charges, but an
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  acquittal on others. She also worked on the sex trafficking prosecutions of
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  Geoffrey Epstein, the financier who killed himself in jail a month after
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  his arrest in twenty nineteen, and Epstein's former girlfriend and longtime confidante,
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  Giselaine Maxwell, who was convicted in twenty twenty one and is serving
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  A twenty year prison sentence. The Justice Department during the Trump administration
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  has fired scores of career employees, including prosecutors and FBI agents, who
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  participated in investigations of Trump or who were perceived as opposed to
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  the administration's agenda. Some of those firings have also resulted in federal
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  lawsuits. The firing of Morin Comey was seen as particularly personal, given
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  her father's longtime adversarial relationship with Trump. An earlier criminal case accusing
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  James Comey of having lied to Congress in twenty twenty, was dismissed
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  by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges
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  was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI
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  Director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of Seashells in the
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  numerical arrangement of eighty six forty seven, a case he has sought
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  to dismiss that some legal experts have greeted with skepticism. In his
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  ruling on Moren Comey's termination, Furman said the Justice Department's claim that
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  Congress is barred from regulating the removal of Federal prosecutors flies in
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  the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent. Furman added,
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  indeed, to accept defendants argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium
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  established by this nation's constitutional system. He didn't rule on Comy's claim
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  that her firing violated her free speech rights, though he said he
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  was inclined to dismiss it because she is now in private practice
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  and no longer seeks reinstatement to her old job. Tucker and Dirkin
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  reported from Washington.