A federal judge in Manhattan ruled on Monday 26 October 2026 that the Justice Department broke the law when it fired Maurene Comey, a career prosecutor and the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, in July 2025. US District Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered her retroactively reinstated with back pay for the five months she was out of work, and the department says it will appeal. We covered another fight over who sets the rules in Washington when the Supreme Court let New Hampshire bar student IDs for voting.
Last checked: 26 October 2026, 21:10 Riyadh time, against the court's 55-page opinion and reporting from AP, Reuters, NBC News and CNBC.
Key facts at a glance
- Case: Maurene Comey v. US Department of Justice, No. 25-CV-7625, Southern District of New York. Opinion filed 26 October 2026.
- Comey spent nearly ten years as an Assistant US Attorney in Manhattan and worked on the Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean Combs cases.
- She was fired by email at 4:57 pm on 16 July 2025. The notice cited only Article II of the Constitution and gave no reason.
- Relief: retroactive reinstatement and back pay from 16 July to 20 December 2025, the date the court says she took another job.
- Still open: her First Amendment claim. Her brief is due by 9 November 2026, and the government gets one week to reply.
What the judge decided in the Maurene Comey case
Furman sided with Comey on her central claims and granted her motion for judgment on the pleadings, which means he decided the case on the written record without a trial. He declared that the department violated the separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act and her Fifth Amendment due process and statutory rights. He also stayed discovery, since the ruling makes most of it pointless.
The facts were barely in dispute. According to the opinion, the government admitted that Comey got no notice, no reason and no chance to respond before she was removed, and that the firing "was not 'for cause' and was not based on her performance." The one-page memo, signed by Francey Hakes, director of the Executive Office for US Attorneys, said she was out "effective immediately." When Comey asked Jay Clayton, then the interim US Attorney in Manhattan, why, the opinion records his answer as "it came from Washington."
It took the government more than ten months to say who decided. In an answer filed on 26 May 2026, the department said then-Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the removal, and it attached a memo from Todd Blanche, then acting attorney general, that claimed to ratify it. Furman rejected both the at-will argument and the idea that a later sign-off could fix the problem, CNBC reported.
Why the Justice Department lost
Two federal laws sit on top of each other here. One, 28 U.S.C. 542(b), says each Assistant US Attorney "is subject to removal by the Attorney General." The other, the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, says covered federal employees can be removed only for a cause that promotes "the efficiency of the service," and only after notice and a chance to be heard. Furman read them together: the attorney general does have the power to fire a line prosecutor, but has to use it the way Congress set out. The government conceded those steps weren't followed. Its fallback, that a firing by the attorney general is automatically a firing for cause, got short shrift. The judge wrote that it "borders on frivolous."
The bigger fight was constitutional. The department argued that federal prosecutors exercise the president's core executive power, so Congress can't limit their removal at all. Furman called that a "sweeping and unprecedented theory of executive authority" and said it runs against Supreme Court cases going back to United States v. Perkins in 1886, which confirmed that Congress can limit how department heads remove the inferior officers they appoint. As a district judge, he wrote, he has to follow those cases until the Supreme Court itself overturns them.
He also took apart the government's reading of this year's Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Slaughter. That ruling overturned Humphrey's Executor, the 1935 case behind independent agencies, and said the president can fire principal officers. Furman's point is that Slaughter was about principal officers, said nothing about inferior ones, and left the civil service protections alone. A career Assistant US Attorney is the textbook inferior officer.
Background: from the Epstein cases to a lawsuit
Comey joined the Manhattan US Attorney's office in 2015, according to Reuters, and the court notes she earned "outstanding" ratings in her annual reviews. Her caseload was about as high-profile as that office gets: the sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein prosecution, former Senator Bob Menendez and, in 2025, the trial of Sean Combs. The day before she was fired, the opinion says, the co-chiefs of the Public Corruption Unit had asked her to join another major trial team, and she said yes.
She sued in September 2025. Her complaint says the real reason was her father, whom Donald Trump fired as FBI director in 2017, or her perceived politics, or both. That First Amendment question is the part Furman hasn't decided. He said it would raise "thorny constitutional issues," including executive privilege, and ordered her to explain, in no more than 3,500 words by 9 November, why that claim shouldn't simply be dismissed now that she has won on other grounds.
The family story runs alongside. NBC News reports that James Comey faces a separate federal case over a photo of seashells forming "86 47," which prosecutors say was a threat against Trump. That case has been pushed to at least early 2027 while a judge weighs dismissal. An earlier case against him was thrown out after a judge found the prosecutor who brought it hadn't been lawfully appointed, Reuters reported. For another look at how a family name drags into US politics, see our report on Obama's criticism of the Ilhan Omar citizenship probe.
Why it matters beyond one prosecutor
Comey isn't going back. Reuters reports she is now a partner at the New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, and The Hill reports her personnel file will be changed to show she resigned. So the money is small next to what the ruling says. Back pay covers about five months, and the court hasn't set the amount yet or decided on legal fees.
The real stakes are in the reasoning. The Civil Service Reform Act covers millions of federal workers, as the opinion points out, and the department's Article II theory would have let any administration fire career prosecutors at will. Reuters described the case as a test of exactly that. Furman went out of his way to say the government "invented a new and expansive theory of executive power" and has used it to remove other employees too. In plain terms, if this ruling holds, a line prosecutor can't be removed with a one-page memo citing the Constitution.
My read: the department probably wanted this fight. Its lawyers told the court, in effect, that they were asking to overturn nearly two centuries of precedent, and a district judge can't do that. The only courts that can are the Second Circuit and, in the end, the Supreme Court, which just widened presidential removal power in Slaughter. This case looks built to get there.
What's next
The first date is 9 November 2026, when Comey's First Amendment brief is due. The government then has a week to answer. After that Furman has to fix the back pay figure and rule on fees before he can enter a final judgment, and CNBC notes the appeal can only be filed after that judgment. An appeal from Manhattan goes to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The department's statement, quoted by NBC News and CNBC, was that it "disagrees with this decision and will appeal in due course." Expect months, not weeks.
How we checked this
I read the full opinion and order (Document 96, filed 26 October 2026) and took the dates, the memo wording, the relief and the 9 November deadline from it directly. I then checked the reporting from AP, Reuters (as published by HuffPost), NBC News and CNBC, all from 26 October, for the department's response and the family background. The Patterson Belknap detail is Reuters', and the personnel file detail is The Hill's. The analysis about where an appeal goes and why the case looks headed for the Supreme Court is mine, not the court's. I'll update this page if the department files a notice of appeal.
FAQ
Who is Maurene Comey?
She was an Assistant US Attorney in Manhattan from 2015 until July 2025 and is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. She worked on the Epstein, Maxwell and Sean Combs cases.
Is she getting her job back?
Only on paper. The reinstatement runs from 16 July to 20 December 2025, so she gets back pay for that period, but she now works at a private law firm.
Why did the judge say the firing was illegal?
The Civil Service Reform Act lets career employees be removed only for cause and after notice and a hearing. The government admitted none of that happened, and the judge rejected its claim that Article II overrides the law.
Will the Justice Department appeal?
Yes, it says it will. The appeal can be filed once the judge enters a final judgment, and it would go to the Second Circuit in New York.
Sources
- Comey v. US Department of Justice, 25-CV-7625 (JMF), Opinion and Order, SDNY (26 October 2026)
- AP: Maurene Comey was illegally fired by the Trump administration, judge rules (26 October 2026)
- Reuters, via HuffPost: Trump's firing of prosecutor Maurene Comey was unlawful, judge rules (26 October 2026)
- NBC News: Judge orders DOJ to reinstate Maurene Comey (26 October 2026)
- CNBC: Trump DOJ unlawfully fired Epstein prosecutor Maurene Comey, judge rules (26 October 2026)
- The Hill: Judge rules Maurene Comey was unlawfully fired by Justice Department (26 October 2026)
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