Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor who worked on the Epstein case, told colleagues not to give into fear

Maurene Comey, centre, daughter of former FBI director James Comey, and an assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York, at a news conference about the unsealing of sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein, in New York, on July 8, 2019. Comey, who was abruptly fired by the Trump Administration yesterday, warned her colleagues about the chilling effect such firings could have on their work. Photo / Jefferson Siegel, the New York Times

Maurene Comey, a career federal prosecutor who worked on the Jeffrey Epstein case and was abruptly fired by the Trump Administration this week, implored her colleagues today not to give into fear, calling it “the tool of a tyrant”.

“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” she wrote in an email that was circulated to her colleagues within the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan. “Do not let that happen”.

Comey is the daughter of James Comey, the former FBI director and an adversary of United States President Donald Trump.

She also prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell, who conspired with Epstein, and was the lead prosecutor in the recent trial of Sean Combs, a hip-hop entrepreneur who was acquitted of the most serious charges he faced earlier this month.

Comey was told of her firing yesterday in a letter from a Justice Department official in Washington who cited Article II of the Constitution, which broadly describes the powers of the president, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

She said in her email that the letter did not give a reason for her termination.

A spokesperson for the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, where she has worked for nearly a decade, declined to comment.

The office, formally known as the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, has been the focus of Trump’s intense ire since his first term. It is widely viewed as the nation’s premier prosecutor’s office.

Firings of line prosecutors used to be rare.

In the Southern District, several office veterans could recall only two over the course of nearly four decades.

And both prosecutors were terminated for misconduct by the head of the office — not officials in Washington — after investigations.

Since Trump took close control of the Justice Department in January, such firings have become more common.

In March, the White House abruptly fired two prosecutors in Los Angeles, California, and Memphis, Tennessee, and more recently, it fired more than 20 career employees, including the ethics adviser to Attorney-General Pam Bondi.

Legal experts and veterans of the office have now begun to question the involvement — or lack thereof — of the interim US Attorney, Jay Clayton, in Comey’s firing. Two people with knowledge of the matter said that Clayton had been blindsided by the news.

Clayton addressed the Comey firing today at a swearing-in for new assistant US attorneys, according to two others who were familiar with his talk. He said little but urged prosecutors to stick together.

Jessica Roth, a former Southern District prosecutor, said the events surrounding Comey’s dismissal had raised questions about Clayton’s leadership in an office once famous for its independence.

“If, in fact, the directive came straight from the White House and he was not consulted, that undermines his authority at the US Attorney’s office,” said Roth, who now teaches criminal law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.

Comey’s firing came just weeks before Clayton’s 120-day term expires. After that, the judges of the federal court for the Southern District could appoint him to the same post, or they might decline to do so.

It is unclear if or how the Justice Department’s firing of Comey might affect the judges’ decision. Before joining the US Attorney’s office, she worked as a law clerk for one of the judges, and as a prosecutor, she has appeared before many of them.

During her Southern District tenure, Comey served variously as co-chief of the unit that prosecutes public corruption and another that handles violent and organised crime.

A strong investigator and trial lawyer, she was known for taking on some of the office’s most significant and challenging work, originating some cases and being asked to join others because of her talent and skill in the courtroom, former colleagues said.

Besides her role in the Combs case and that of Epstein, which ended in 2019 when he was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell before he could be tried, Comey also prosecuted Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking conspiracy, resulting in a 20-year sentence.

In 2023, she helped obtain the conviction of Robert Hadden, a former Manhattan gynaecologist who had induced patients to cross state lines for what they believed would be routine examinations during which he sexually assaulted them; and of Nicholas Tartaglione, a retired police officer from Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County who received four life sentences in a 2016 quadruple murder.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: William K. Rashbaum, Jonah E. Bromwich and Benjamin Weiser

Photograph by: Jefferson Siegel

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