Judge rules Trump administration's firing of prosecutor Maurene Comey was unlawful

A federal judge in New York ruled on Monday that the Trump administration's firing of Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor, was unlawful. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman sided with Comey, the eldest daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by the Justice Department in July 2025, a few months into Trump's second term. She had worked in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office since 2015 and brought cases against Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean "Diddy" Combs.

In her lawsuit, Comey alleged she was fired because of who her father is, violating federal laws that bar firing civil servants for political reasons and guarantee due process. The Justice Department argued that prosecutors can be removed without cause by the president or attorney general because they exercise delegated executive authority in court. Furman cited centuries of legal precedent and rejected what he called a sweeping and unprecedented theory of executive authority. The case was seen as a test of whether the administration can quickly fire career prosecutors.

The Blaze, on the right, leads with the judge's Obama appointment and says he ordered Comey retroactively reinstated. It notes that Furman found the attorney general and those with delegated authority are "authorized by law" to fire a federal prosecutor, but that this firing's manner was unlawful. It calls James Comey "disgraced." MS NOW and HuffPost, on the left, frame the ruling as a rebuke of the administration. MS NOW stresses the rejection of the executive-power theory and the immunity ruling's irrelevance, and HuffPost, running Reuters copy, calls it a victory for Comey and details her Maxwell and Combs cases. Both sides report the unlawful-firing finding. They differ in whether they stress the judge's appointer and reinstatement or the limits on presidential power. Reuters and NewsNation largely match the left's straightforward account.