A federal judge in New York has ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully fired former Manhattan federal prosecutor Maurene Comey in July 2025, ordering retroactive reinstatement with back pay through December 2025.
A federal judge in New York ruled on Monday that the Trump administration unlawfully fired Maurene Comey, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor, from her post in July 2025. Judge Jesse Furman of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held that the firing violated the Civil Service Reform Act, which limits how and for what reasons an assistant United States attorney may be removed.
Comey served as an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan from 2015 until her dismissal on 16 July 2025, working on the prosecutions of Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean “Diddy” Combs. In a 55-page opinion, Furman also found that the administration had violated the separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act and Comey's due-process rights, rejecting what he described as a sweeping and unprecedented theory of executive authority.
The remedy is retrospective rather than a return to work. Furman ordered Comey reinstated with back pay from the date of her termination in July 2025 until December 2025, when she effectively resigned from her role by accepting a job in the private sector, joining Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in February. The Justice Department said it disagrees with the decision and will appeal in due course, although Reuters reported that Furman has not yet ruled on one claim in the case, so an appeal cannot yet be filed.
The ruling, the reinstatement window and the department's response are all documented in the opinion as reported by Reuters and ABC News. What the reporting does not establish is whether the firing was retaliation linked to Comey's father, former FBI Director James Comey; that question remains unresolved in the reporting retrieved, and the decision itself turns on the civil-service rules governing removal, not on a finding about motive.
Comey's lawyers said the decision “reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances.” Furman had earlier described Comey as, by all accounts, an exemplary assistant United States attorney who was assigned some of the country's highest-profile cases and consistently received the highest accolades from supervisors and peers.
The practical effect is therefore narrow but the legal signal is broad. Comey is now in private practice and the back-pay window closes in December, yet the ruling pushes back on the administration's argument, advanced with reference to recent Supreme Court decisions on presidential power, that prosecutors who exercise the president's powers must be removable for any reason or no reason at all. The department's promised appeal means that argument is not yet settled.