Maurene Comey, a former federal prosecutor who accused the Trump administration of firing her last year for political reasons, may proceed with a lawsuit in federal court over the government’s objection, a Manhattan judge ruled on Tuesday.
Ms. Comey, a daughter of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director and one of President Trump’s best known adversaries, said in her suit that there was no plausible explanation for her abrupt July 2025 dismissal other than Mr. Trump’s enmity toward her father or her “perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”
The Trump administration had asked the judge, Jesse M. Furman of Manhattan federal court, to dismiss Ms. Comey’s suit against the government, saying it had to be pursued first before the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent agency that hears complaints from federal workers about employment actions.
But Judge Furman held that her claim was “outside the universe of cases” that Congress intended the board to resolve, and therefore the court had jurisdiction to consider the suit. The judge did not rule on the merits of Ms. Comey’s claim.
Ms. Comey had no comment on the ruling, her lawyers, Ellen Blain and Nicole Gueron, said. They added that they were thrilled with the decision.
“No president can ignore the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and federal law and fire a career federal employee based solely on her last name,” the lawyers said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Northern District of New York declined to comment. The Northern District is litigating Ms. Comey’s lawsuit on behalf of the government given that she worked in the Southern District, where it was filed.
Although the decision on Tuesday merely opens the door for Ms. Comey to pursue her claim in federal court, it is a major victory for her and other federal workers whose firings the administration justified by asserting Mr. Trump’s constitutional power.
Practically, it means that Ms. Comey’s claims will now be weighed by a court with which the Trump administration has less sway.
The law says that the Merit Systems Protection Board, which the government had argued was the proper arbiter for the case, should be as independent as district court judges like Judge Furman. But early in his second term, Mr. Trump fired the board’s chair, Cathy Harris, reflecting the White House’s desire to shape the workings of an agency that is empowered to determine whether certain federal employees can be fired by the president. Ms. Harris has contested her firing, and last month she appealed to the Supreme Court.
Also in March, the board issued a ruling in which it determined that it could opine on the expanse of executive power — suggesting for the first time in its history that it has the right to weigh in on constitutional questions. In that ruling, the board sided with the administration.
But Judge Furman, acknowledging the ruling in his decision on Ms. Comey, said that it underscored the fact that the board “has no real experience, let alone expertise, in addressing constitutional issues.”
In her lawsuit, Ms. Comey argued that neither the president nor the Justice Department had unlimited authority to fire rank-and-file prosecutors, who are protected under civil service laws. Her dismissal, without notice or a chance to challenge it, was both illegal and unconstitutional, the suit said.
In asking the judge to dismiss Ms. Comey’s suit, the government argued that none of her allegations “can reverse Congress’s decision, almost 50 years ago, to channel judicial review of the claims she asserts” away from federal court.
Ms. Comey, who had been a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York for nearly a decade and was one of its most highly regarded trial lawyers, handled criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean Combs, and also supervised the bribery prosecution of Robert Menendez, the former Democratic senator from New Jersey.
In all, she handled 11 criminal trials and obtained more than 200 convictions, her lawsuit said. She also had served as the co-chief of a unit that prosecuted violent and organized crime and later of a unit that pursued public corruption cases.
In her lawsuit, Ms. Comey seeks back pay and a declaration that her dismissal was unlawful. In February, she entered private practice, joining the New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler as a partner in its litigation department.
