NEW YORK — A federal judge signaled Thursday that the U.S. Justice Department might be right in its argument that fired prosecutor Maurene Comey’s wrongfully termination claims don’t belong in court just yet.
Judge Jesse M. Furman in Manhattan declined at a hearing to let lawyers for Comey immediately gather evidence to learn who ordered her firing and how it transpired. He told both sides to submit written arguments in coming weeks.
Furman said the government had made “serious arguments” when it said in court papers that Comey’s complaint about her July firing must first be considered by the federal Merit Systems Protection Board in an administrative setting.
Comey, the daughter of ex-FBI Director James Comey, is seeking evidence from the government before the judge decides on the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case.
John Sarcone, the acting U.S. attorney for Northern New York, took the case after Manhattan prosecutors who worked with Comey recused themselves. He sat at the defense table Thursday with Karen Folster Lesperance, the chief of his office’s civil division, who argued on behalf of the government.
Lesperance said the process of gathering evidence, known as discovery, would present “some thorny issues,” including searching the files of high-ranking officials such as President Trump and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and the possibility that he would invoke executive privilege.
“It’s not a simple search of her name, it’s what files and whose files,” Lesperance said.
Comey contends that if Trump or Bondi were directly involved in her firing, she can pursue her claims in federal court without first having to take them to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
She claimed in her September lawsuit that her dismissal — soon after she led the prosecution of Sean “Diddy” Combs and won a conviction on prostitution-related charges — was retribution because her father is a Trump foe. Trump fired James Comey as FBI director in 2017.
A federal judge in Virginia last month dismissed a criminal case against James Comey, concluding that the prosecutor who brought the charges at Trump’s urging was illegally appointed by the Justice Department. The Trump administration could try to have a different prosecutor refile the charges of making a false statement and obstructing Congress.
Sarcone and Comey declined to comment as they left court on Thursday.
Jennifer Blain, one of four women representing Maureen Comey, told Furman that Trump has gutted the Merit Systems Protection Board as he reshapes the federal government and weakens protections for federal workers, and that the board is no longer functional to handle such claims.
The board was not designed to rule “on the constitutionality of the separation of powers” or on “its own existence,” Blain said. She called the government’s argument a “Kafkaesque Catch-22.”
Comey’s reputation “has, in fact, been harmed by this unlawful action,” Blain said, noting that top results when searching her name online are almost exclusively related to her firing.
Sisak and Neumeister write for the Associated Press.
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