WASHINGTON (AP) — Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI chief James Comey and a seasoned federal prosecutor in Manhattan known for her work on high-profile cases involving Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein, has been dismissed from the Justice Department, as relayed by three individuals familiar with the situation to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
According to one of the individuals, no explicit reason was provided for her termination. They communicated with the AP under the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel issues.
Maurene Comey held a distinguished position within the Southern District of New York, regarded as the premier office among the Justice Department’s prosecutorial units. Her notable cases included the prosecution of Epstein for sex trafficking before his suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial, and a recent trial against Combs that concluded with a mixed outcome earlier this month.
She didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday.
It’s the latest move by the Justice Department to fire lawyers without explanation, which has raised alarm over a disregard for civil service protections designed to prevent terminations for political reasons. The Justice Department has also fired a number of prosecutors who worked on cases that have provoked President Donald Trump’s ire, including some who handled U.S. Capitol riot cases and lawyers and support staff who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump.
Maurene Comey was long seen as a potential target given her father’s fraught relationship over the last decade with the Republican president. The Justice Department recently appeared to acknowledge the existence of an investigation into James Comey, though the basis for that inquiry is unclear.
Most recently, she was the lead prosecutor among six female prosecutors in the sex trafficking and racketeering case against Combs. The failure to convict the hip-hop mogul of the main charges, while gaining a conviction on prostitution-related charges that will likely result in a prison sentence of just a few years, was viewed by some fellow lawyers as a rare defeat by prosecutors.
But she was successful in numerous other prosecutions, most notably the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges for helping financier Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. In that case, she delivered a rebuttal argument during closings, as she did in the Combs case.
Her firing comes as Attorney General Pam Bondi faces intense criticism from some members of Trump’s base for the Justice Department’s decision not to release any more evidence in the government’s possession from Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation. Some right-wing internet personalities, like Laura Loomer, who have been critical of Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files had been calling for Maurene Comey’s firing.
James Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s administration. But his relationship with Trump was strained from the start, and the FBI director resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge personal loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.
Trump soon after fired Comey amid an investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered with the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.
Trump’s fury at the older Comey continued long after firing him from the bureau, blaming him for a “hoax” and “witch hunt” that shadowed much of his first term.
Comey disclosed contemporaneous memos of his conversations with Trump to a friend so that their content could be revealed to the media, and the following year he published a book calling Trump “ego driven” and likening him to a mafia don. Trump, for his part, has accused Comey and other officials of treason.
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Associated Press reporter Larry Neumeister in New York contributed.
