Prologue. Having spent years poking at the United States Attorney’s offices and the Department of Justice, it pains me deeply to find myself in the position of defending those against whom I fought for so long. And many of you have taken me to task for saying anything kind toward the government, as the suggestion that the pre-Trump DoJ was without sin and bad players flies in the face of the many wrongs committed over the years.

But that doesn’t mean every AUSA was dishonorable or venal, and many performed their duties with honor and, dare I say it, in accordance with what they perceived to be “justice.” 

I don’t know Maurene Comey, the daughter of former SDNY assistant and later FBI Director James Comey. From available information, she served with distinction. Her performance was “outstanding,” at least according to whatever metric is used in the SDNY to decide such matters. And she played a role in some significant prosecutions, which means that somebody in the office thought well enough of her that when the office’s credibility was on the line, she was trusted to do the job.

So why, then, did she get an email informing her she was fired because of “Article II of the Constitution”?

Through her decade of service, she received consistently “outstanding” performance reviews, and she was promoted to leadership positions within the Southern District office. She handled some of the department’s highest-profile cases, including the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, for sex trafficking, before his suicide and she later successfully prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell. Shortly before she was fired, she was part of the team that won only a partial conviction of Sean “Diddy” Combs for various sex-related offenses. Ms. Comey has maintained that there was never any allegation, much less proof, offered to her that her performance was deficient.

Perhaps the name Ghislaine Maxwell stood out in the above paragraph, raising the specter that Maurene Comey possessed information about the case, and about those who were collaterally involved with Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell, which raised concerns in the minds of those fighting with everything they have to keep the Epstein files secret. Having no personal information about the case, I have no clue what might be in those files that is so bad, so horrific, that much of the Trump administration’s decisions are directed toward gaslighting the public about their disclosure, their content and their consequences, but there is no doubt that keeping the files secret has played a huge role in much of what Trump does.

Jeffrey Toobin contends, however, that the reason for Maurene Comey’s firing isn’t her involvement in the Maxwell case, and whatever dirt the files may contain about Trump’s special relationship to Epstein. Rather, he points toward Trump’s personal protector, Laura Loomer.

So why was she fired? Throughout 2025, Ms. Comey was a target of Laura Loomer, the right-wing social media influencer whose public denunciations of several members of the Trump administration, including Gen. Timothy Haugh, director of the National Security Agency, led to their dismissals. Ms. Loomer has positioned herself as the president’s protector and uses her presence on social media to lead the charge against those she accuses of insufficient loyalty to the commander in chief. Ms. Loomer called for Ms. Comey to be fired as a “national security risk” because of her “proximity to a criminal,” that is, her father.

There is, of course, some crossover between the two reasons for tossing Comey out of the SDNY. If she could be trusted, then she would hold Trump’s Epstein secrets close rather than be feared as the sort of Daddy’s Girl who might give them away to help Jim, or at least hurt Donald. Then again, as an Assistant United States Attorney who, supposedly, takes her ethical responsibilities seriously enough that she hasn’t bent to the whims of her lord and master like his ever-adoring attorney general, she would hold tight the secrets gained during her tenure because of confidentiality, a matter that some of us take with the utmost seriousness, rather than loyalty to a man.

Toobin goes on to note that Maurene Comey’s suit against the government for her wrongful discharge in violation of the civil service law, while not as lurid as the prosecution of her father, may well have far greater significance for federal employees.

The formal notice of Ms. Comey’s dismissal, which came in a brief email from a Justice Department official in Washington, gave no reason for her termination. Rather, she was told only that she was being fired “pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution,” the provision that defines the powers of the president. Those brief words — and notably what the firing message omitted — reveal the legal stakes of Ms. Comey’s lawsuit.

For more than 100 years, federal civil service law has sought to protect a merit-based workforce from using federal jobs as either political payback or opportunities for graft. There is a level below which politics is supposed to play no role, and positions are to be given, and held, based on competence rather than political affiliation. While United States Attorneys are political appointees, AUSA are not. They’re working stiffs, who serve administration after administration without regard to party. At least, that was the theory.

The Trump position is that Article II gives the president unfettered power over the federal workforce, and that any law that limits the president’s power to do whatever he pleases is unconstitutional. Unlike most federal employees, Maurene Comey is in the position to fight against this theory and is doing so. Since the 1880s, no one questioned that the federal workforce wasn’t the president’s playground, to reward his loyal subjects and punish those who failed to swear fealty.

Or, as here, had a father that Trump despised. Should the daughter pay for the sins of the father, assuming the father has sinned at all? If the president says so, having taken the advice of his most dedicated unofficial adviser, Laura Loomer, is that the end of the issue?