\n<\/p>\n
Two weeks after Maurene Comey secured a guilty verdict against Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs, the Manhattan federal prosecutor received a three-paragraph letter from top justice department authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour employment with the Department of Justice is hereby terminated, and you are removed from federal service effective immediately,\u201d the 16 July missive from Francey Hakes, director of the DoJ\u2019s executive office for United States attorneys, said.<\/p>\n
The shocking firing of Comey \u2013 whose extensive list of successes included prosecutions against Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Robert Hadden \u2013 has prompted questions about whether it was politically motivated, given that her father is former FBI director James Comey, whom Donald Trump publicly considers an enemy.<\/p>\n
Now justice department officials\u2019 recent defense of Maurene Comey\u2019s firing \u2013 both in an 18 September court proceeding and legal filings \u2013 has lifted the veil on the apparent politicization of Trump\u2019s DoJ and as well as his seeming desire to dramatically expand presidential power.<\/p>\n
Justice department officials have insisted that under article II of the US constitution, which establishes presidential power, Trump and his attorney general can fire line prosecutors: employees who are not political appointees. DoJ attorneys have also invoked Comey\u2019s familial \u201cnexus\u201d in court proceedings and the DOJ has said in court that former Trump Attorney Pam Bondi directed Comey\u2019s firing.<\/p>\n
But critics and legal observers say that the testimony has instead shown how the justice department has become warped under Trump and bent to his will to pursue his personal vendettas against his perceived foes \u2013 and apparently their close family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no secret that the Department of Justice is highly politicized,\u201d said Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor. \u201cA lot of career prosecutors have left voluntarily. Others have been forced out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve taken a very broad view of presidential power in many different areas of the law,\u201d he said in reference to the DoJ\u2019s article II argument.<\/p>\n
Comey sued the DoJ on 15 September 2025 over her firing, with attorneys Ellen Blain, Nicole Gueron and Deepa Vanamali arguing that she was fired \u201csolely or substantially because her father is former FBI director James B Comey, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both\u201d, in violation of her first amendment rights.<\/p>\n
Comey\u2019s attorneys maintain article II does not give the president or his attorney general power to fire legally protected civil servants without cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is far more plausible that she was fired for reasons that violate the first amendment than anything else. What else could it be? What would they have us believe, that her name was pulled out of a hat? It doesn\u2019t pass the laugh test,\u201d Gueron told Manhattan federal judge Jesse Furman during legal arguments on 18 September. \u201cBy admitting there was no cause to fire her, they raise the immediate question \u2026 why was she fired, and is there some reason other than a first amendment violation for her firing?\u201d<\/p>\n
Gueron referenced a line in an August DoJ filing that stated Comey \u201cis thus wrong to assert that no \u2018nexus\u2019 exists between her familial relationship and ability to carry about her duties\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean? What is the nexus between her family and her job?It is not her ability to do the job. They have conceded she was fired without cause. It is not some kind of performance-based failure. So what is the nexus that they are referring to?\u201d Gueron argued. \u201cIt can only be that they believe, because she is a member of a family that is politically disfavored by this administration, she is presumed incapable of doing her work, of serving her country, and presumed to hold disfavored political opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s basically deemed a political enemy, a thought criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the proceeding, Furman asked the DoJ lawyer Tyler Becker: \u201cWhen you referenced the nexus between Ms Comey\u2019s familial relationship or family, or name, or whatever the case may be, and performance here, what did you mean by that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that the government could never consider the speech, or otherwise, of a family member in determining whether there is an appropriate nexus, just doesn\u2019t make any sense in the ability to carry out their duties,\u201d Becker responded.<\/p>\n
He continued at one stage to say: \u201cGiven there may be some trust issues or something like that from the government, in terms of giving you that power due to certain familial relations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furman asked: \u201cIn your view, is there a nexus between her family relationship, her last name, and her ability to carry out her duties?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not asserted any sort of nexus that exists,\u201d Becker said. \u201cWe have just asserted that the attorney general can remove Ms Comey without cause. So we have not asserted that that is the reason for her termination whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blain, who represents Comey, pressed on this moments later, saying that DoJ lawyers \u201ccouldn\u2019t find an answer\u201d and \u201cstruggled\u201d when asked about this nexus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government actually said that there may be trust issues due to familial relations,\u201d Blain said. If that\u2019s the nexus between her firing, then that \u201cclearly violates\u201d the constitution.<\/p>\n
As for the government\u2019s assertion that assistant US attorneys can be terminated without cause, Becker said criminal prosecution falls under the president\u2019s executive powers \u2013 and that the ability to fire without cause was in keeping with good government.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the executive power is vested in a democratically elected president, and the accountability for serious prosecutorial decisions must not go to people who \u2013 or to bureaucrats in the government \u2013 who are not accountable to the people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The claim that accountability necessitated unchecked firing power over workaday prosecutors appears to contrast with longstanding agency hierarchy.<\/p>\n
Speaking in general and not about Comey\u2019s case, attorney Jackie Kelly, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who now works at Boies Schiller Flexner, said there is a \u201cchain of command\u201d in US attorneys\u2019 offices.<\/p>\n
A line prosecutor has \u201cnumerous supervisors, both direct and skip level, within the office. They are directly supervised by their unit or section chief.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThose unit or section chiefs are, in turn, supervised by the chief of their division,\u201d Kelly explained. \u201cThose criminal and civil division heads are underneath the first assistant or the deputy US attorney, who reports to the US attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assistant US attorneys, generally speaking, do not act \u201cunilaterally\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are numerous kinds of inflection points, or decision points, where supervisors are involved during the life of a case,\u201d said Kelly, who worked with Comey at the Manhattan federal prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Assistant US attorneys can be fired for cause \u2013 they\u2019re not insulated in the event of bad performance. But that bad performance has to be spelled out.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you have power, there\u2019s the risk of the abuse of that power, so I think it\u2019s really important that [assistant attorneys general] and other federal employees can be removed for cause,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of far afield from the idea that the executive can, on a whim, remove someone from their job without any regard for those protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to seek justice and to do the job the right way if you\u2019re looking over your shoulder in fear that you might get fired, or if you\u2019re trying to seek favor with the executive.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Carl Tobias, the Williams chair at the University of Richmond School of Law, Furman\u2019s questions suggest that he is not swayed by the DoJ\u2019s arguments. As for what the case says about the DoJ under Trump, Tobias returned to what many believe is the main issue: Why was Maurene Comey actually fired?<\/p>\n
\u201cEven the government lawyers seem to admit that she was a model employee, and she had won a number of high-profile cases,\u201d Tobias said. \u201cThat then leads to the question of whether it\u2019s because of her father and those kinds of issues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two weeks after Maurene Comey secured a guilty verdict against Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs, the Manhattan federal prosecutor received a three-paragraph letter from top justice department authorities. \u201cYour employment with the Department of Justice is hereby terminated, and you are removed from federal service effective immediately,\u201d the 16 July missive from Francey Hakes, director of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[794,14544,6095,1873,2282,25350,392,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-52339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-comey","10":"tag-defend","11":"tag-firing","12":"tag-justice","13":"tag-maurene","14":"tag-system","15":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}