Judge Orders DOJ to Pay $40,000 and Rehire Maurene Comey

Maurene Comey must return to her desk at the Justice Department, and the agency owes her $40,000 in back pay. That is the bottom line from a federal court ruling issued Monday that reverses her July 2025 termination. The decision means a career prosecutor who spent nearly a decade in the Southern District of New York gets her job back, along with the wages she missed between her firing and her start date at a new firm on Dec. 20, 2025.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman found that Comey was unlawfully terminated. He determined the abrupt firing violated the separation of powers under the Constitution. It also breached her Fifth Amendment right to due process and specific statutory protections for federal employees. The court awarded back pay effective from the date of her termination through Dec. 20, 2025.

Furman wrote that the administration's claim that it can fire career prosecutors at will would unsettle the constitutional equilibrium of the nation. He noted that Congress granted the Attorney General the power to remove Comey but imposed limits on that power. The judge said those limits were violated in this case. He rejected the Justice Department's argument that the attorney general has unlimited authority to fire staff without cause. He called that position a sweeping theory of executive authority that flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.

Maurene Comey is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey. She worked on high-profile cases in New York, including the prosecutions of Sean Combs, former Sen. Bob Menendez, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell. Her attorneys, Ellen Blain, Nicole Gueron, Deepa Vanamali, and Margaret Donovan, issued a joint statement. They said the decision reaffirms that the President is not above the law. They added that the victory belongs to Comey, civil servants, and those fighting for the rule of law.

Comey sued in September 2025. She alleged the administration provided no legitimate explanation for firing her. She claimed the removal was driven by President Donald Trump's long-standing dispute with her father, whom Trump fired as FBI director in 2017. Comey said her boss told her the firing decision came from Washington. A Justice Department court filing later stated that then-Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the removal.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department said the agency disagrees with the decision and will appeal in due course. The ruling comes as the administration continues to pursue a federal criminal case against James Comey. That case stems from a photo of seashells that prosecutors say amounted to a threat against Trump. The seashells trial has been delayed until at least early 2027 while a judge weighs whether to dismiss it. James Comey's legal team argues the case is a product of retribution rather than a good-faith application of federal law.