The federal prosecutor who helped send Ghislaine Maxwell to jail and was mysteriously sacked days before the Trump administration made a sweetheart deal with the convicted sex offender is suing over her dismissal.
Two months after she was abruptly fired, Maurene Comey has filed a lawsuit against the White House, Attorney General Pam Bondi and others, declaring that her sacking was politically driven and without due process.
“The politically motivated termination of Ms. Comey—ostensibly under ‘Article II of the Constitution’—upends bedrock principles of our democracy and justice system,” the lawsuit says.
“Assistant United States attorneys like Ms. Comey must do their jobs without fearing or favoring any political party or perspective, guided solely by the law, the facts and the pursuit of justice.”
Comey is the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, who is one of Trump’s biggest adversaries and a critic of the president.
She was also a seasoned federal prosecutor who worked on the cases against Maxwell, convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and most recently Sean “Diddy” Combs.
But in July, the day after the U.S. Attorney’s Office had asked her to take the lead on a major public corruption case, the 37-year-old was fired without explanation.
The timing became particularly notable one week later, when Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche suddenly announced he would be meeting with Maxwell at her Florida prison as the firestorm surrounding the Epstein files continued to engulf the President.
Soon after the interview, in which Maxwell gushed about Trump and insisted he never did anything “inappropriate,” the administration allowed her to move to a lower security maximum prison.
“Maurene Comey was undoubtedly the most knowledgeable person in the Department of Justice of Ghislaine Maxwell and her crimes,” former DOJ pardon attorney Liz Oyer told the Daily Beast at the time.
“So the fact that she was fired, and the fact that Todd Blanche—who’s not somebody who had worked on this case previously—was handling it, raises questions about whether there’s really any interest in the truth of the matter.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan on Monday, notes that Comey had spent 10 years working as the Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and was repeatedly rewarded and promoted by the Department.
But on the day she was sacked, “defendants did not identify any cause or provide Ms. Comey any due process for her removal. She simply received an email with an attachment stating that she was being terminated,” the lawsuit says.
“In truth, there is no legitimate explanation. Rather, Defendants fired Ms. Comey solely or substantially because her father is former FBI Director James B. Comey, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”
James Comey was fired by the first Trump administration in 2017, days after Comey confirmed the FBI was investigating possible links between the Trump campaign and possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The issue remains a sore spot for the President to this day. He views Comey as emblematic of the “weaponized” justice system that he has since sought to dismantle.
But Maurene Comey is not the only person to be targeted by the administration, which has spent its entire second term purging its agencies of people who are not viewed as presidential loyalists.
Last week, for instance, three FBI agents who were fired last month also sued Bondi, along with FBI Director Kash Patel, alleging that the officials fired them to appease Trump.
Comey’s lawsuit names Bondi as a defendant, along with her Department of Justice, the Executive Office of the President, Director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys Francey Hakes, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, and the Office of Personnel Management.
She is seeking a jury trial to be reinstated.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and the Justice Department for comment.
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