DOJ fires Maurene Comey, prosecutor involved in Epstein, Diddy cases

Federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, who worked on the criminal cases of Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, was fired Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James B. Comey, was also a prosecutor in the recent trial of Sean Combs, the entertainer known as Diddy. The reason for her firing was not immediately clear.

The notice informing the younger Comey of her termination did not provide a reason, citing the broad powers afforded to the president in the U.S. Constitution, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. The notice was signed by Francey Hakes - a political appointee in the Justice Department who runs the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys.

It was not known whether the younger Comey’s firing was connected to the Epstein case or her relation to the former FBI director, who was fired during President Donald Trump’s first term.

The Justice Department and White House have received intense backlash and criticism in recent weeks from Trump’s far-right base over its handling of the Epstein case and the administration’s decision not to release more records related to the former financier’s sex-trafficking case. Epstein hanged himself in 2019 while awaiting trial. In 2021, Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking.

Combs was recently partially acquitted in a sex-trafficking trial. Combs and his lawyers hailed the verdict as a victory and said federal prosecutors dramatically overreached in bringing the case. The hip-hop mogul still faces up to 10 years in prison on those counts.

The Justice Department acknowledged last week that it had opened a criminal probe into James B. Comey - a frequent target of Trump who played a role in the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia. During his first presidential term, Trump fired Comey midway through his 10-year term as FBI director.

The younger Comey received notice of her termination at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, one of the people familiar with the matter said. The person said that Comey’s colleagues escorted her out of the building in solidarity.

Comey had worked at the federal U.S. attorney’s office for nearly a decade and was a well-respected prosecutor and mentor to younger colleagues.

Spokesmen for the Southern District of New York and for the Justice Department declined to comment. An attorney for James B. Comey did not immediately return a request for comment.

Comey’s termination is the latest in a wave of firings that Justice Department leaders have carried out in recent weeks, often without providing a reason to those they have let go.

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi fired 20 employees who had worked on federal prosecutions of Trump, including two prosecutors attached to former special counsel Jack Smith. She also fired her senior ethics attorney, Joseph Tirrell - a career Justice Department employee who posted on LinkedIn that he was tasked with advising the attorney general and deputy attorney general on federal employee ethics.

Career employees in the federal government have long had protections that are intended to shield them from being fired by political appointees with no due process. But the Trump administration has rapidly tried to dismantle these protections, firing people across the Justice Department and other federal agencies with little explanation.

Many of these employees have appealed their firings at the Merit Systems Protection Board - a quasi-judicial agency in the executive branch. Legal experts said the board is understaffed and backlogged, so any termination reversal could take years to secure.

Justice Department and FBI leaders are attempting to mitigate the fallout over the Epstein case. Bondi had vowed the department would make public details and documents from the FBI’s investigation. For years conspiracy theorists had speculated that the government covered up key details to protect powerful men who they suspected might be involved in crimes.

FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, stoked those theories before Trump appointed them to their government roles.

But last week, the Justice Department released a memo stating that files related to the sex-trafficking case did not contain a “client list” and that officials would not be releasing any further investigatory files. That response divided top FBI and Justice Department officials and prompted many Trump supporters to call for Bondi’s resignation.

Trump has supported Bondi amid the furor. And in recent days Bondi has taken several actions that have appealed to Trump’s base. She has fired attorneys and support staff who worked on investigations related to Trump during the Biden administration, dropped a high-profile prosecution of a Utah doctor whose case had garnered attention from Republican members of Congress and released an unusual statement that acknowledged the investigation into James B. Comey.

“I’m going to be here for as long as the president wants me here,” Bondi said at an unrelated new conference Wednesday. “And I believe he’s made that crystal clear.”

Democrats and legal experts have accused the Trump administration of using its power to punish its opponents and intimidate detractors to quell dissent.

The administration, for example, touted in April the arrest of a Wisconsin judge who allegedly assisted an undocumented immigrant evade immigration officers in the courthouse. In May, prosecutors in New Jersey charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-New Jersey) with assault after she was accused of striking and slamming her arms against federal agents at a protest outside an immigration facility.

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Patrick Marley contributed to this report.