Judge Rules Trump's DOJ Illegally Fired Maurene Comey, Orders Reinstatement

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled on October 26, 2026, that the Trump administration illegally fired Maurene Comey, an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan who had prosecuted cases against Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean "Diddy" Combs, when it dismissed her on July 16, 2025. Furman found the administration exceeded its authority by removing an "inferior officer" without cause and rejected the government's argument that federal prosecutors are an extension of the president's "conclusive and preclusive" removal power. He ordered back pay and retroactive reinstatement for the period from her firing through December.

Furman wrote that the administration had "invented a new and expansive theory of executive power" to justify removing employees Congress had long protected from political firing, and warned that accepting the government's position "would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this nation's constitutional system." The ruling is one of several recent decisions testing how far the president can go in removing career officials and civil servants without the cause protections Congress enacted.

The Justice Department said it "disagrees with this decision and will appeal in due course." Comey's case joins a broader pattern of court rulings against administration personnel actions this term.