Maurene Comey’s unjustified firing looks even more corrupt today

Trump's Justice Department has bulldozed the norms of justice and fired dozens of prosecutors.

By Mimi Rocah and Jacqueline Kelly

Last week, Southern District of New York federal prosecutor Maurene Comey was fired, without explanation, from the role she had served in for nearly 10 years. It is a travesty and perversion of all that the Department of Justice stands for. We know because we were Comey’s very first and very last supervisors at SDNY. And today, based on new reporting, the reasons for this unjust firing seem all the more transparent and disturbing.

Comey has been a tenacious prosecutor for almost 10 years and one of the hardest working. She pours her heart and soul into her cases; she runs toward the hard ones that others might fear couldn’t be charged or that they might lose at trial. She is revered among her colleagues and sought after as a partner by experienced law enforcement agents and officers who want to get cases made. She is respected by federal judges before whom she appears for her intellect, courtroom chops and integrity, and she is held in high esteem for her fairness and collegiality by defense attorneys against whom she litigates. Many prosecutors strive to achieve what Comey has, but few can boast of the same success. Her North Star, the thing she cares most about and has driven her whole career, is getting justice for victims—especially those most vulnerable.

That North Star led Comey to prosecute and oversee dozens of violent crimes and sexual abuse cases and to train dozens more federal prosecutors to follow in her stead. Comey rose to become the chief of the Violent and Organized Crime Unit and Public Corruption Unit during her time at SDNY. In addition to her most recent work on the Sean Combs prosecution, her work at SDNY included charging in 2016 Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer, for the depraved quadruple kidnapping, torture, and murder of four men whose bodies he then buried. Tartaglione was convicted at trial and sentenced to four life terms. In 2020, she charged former gynecologist Robert Hadden for sexually abusing patients in his care. Hadden was convicted at trial and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

And she charged Jeffrey Epstein after the Southern District of Florida botched the initial federal investigation of his sex crimes against children. Epstein was charged with federal sex trafficking in 2008 in Florida but was given a shockingly lenient deal in the form of a federal non-prosecution agreement requiring Epstein to plead to only state prostitution crimes with a light sentence. There were unusual aspects surrounding the plea negotiations brokered by Alex Acosta, then-U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida (later a Cabinet member in the first Trump administration), which a federal judge later found violated federal law. This came to light in 2019 because of the work of a team of federal prosecutors from SDNY, including Comey, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department, which sought justice for Epstein’s victims. Without the work of Comey and that team, Epstein would not have been charged again and awaiting real consequences in federal prison at the time he killed himself. Their work is also why his co-conspirator and enabler Ghislane Maxwell was charged and convicted and is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison.

Whatever one’s political background and beliefs, it is universally accepted that Epstein was a very dangerous predator who did unspeakable things to girls and young women. In any other DOJ universe, the prosecutors who finally held Epstein criminally accountable would be given the highest awards—not fired. Though no reason was given for Comey’s abrupt termination, the timing and fraught atmosphere more than suggest that in this instance—as in many others over the past few months—President Donald Trump’s DOJ acted not with victims or justice as its North Star but with politics guiding the way. Even those who accept the broad “unitary executive” theory of presidential power or the idea that presidents can and should be allowed to control policy at DOJ should understand that acting out of bald political motivations is a gross perversion of the criminal justice system and sacrifices the values that system is designed to uphold: public safety, the vindication of victims’ rights, and equal accountability.

Today, the deputy attorney general stated publicly that he intends to meet with Maxwell—a conveniently timed and suspicious development, to say the least. DOJ leadership has immense conflicts of interest here, given, for starters, the administration’s mounting political crisis surrounding Epstein, the DOJ’s demonstrated willingness to act on behalf of the president’s political interests as opposed to justice and victims’ interests, the fact that the DAG himself is doing this (as opposed to SDNY—the prosecutor’s office that convicted Maxwell and has the most knowledge of her crimes), and the fact that this is happening right after the lead prosecutor was fired. And Maxwell’s attorney seems to see exactly where this is potentially headed—a deal for Maxwell if she clears the president—stating, “I can confirm that we are in discussions with the government and that Ghislaine will always testify truthfully. We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”

To say that the process of cooperating with a convicted defendant in a complex case is sensitive and fraught is an understatement. That DOJ seems intent on cutting out SDNY, which would be the best judge of whether or not Maxwell is being truthful, is telling. It is a clear sign that DOJ is not seeking truth here and is looking instead to make SDNY a scapegoat for anything arising from this self-made crisis that reflects poorly on the administration. That the interim U.S. Attorney, Jay Clayton, has not publicly defended Comey and SDNY’s handling of Epstein shows he likely has been cowed into submission by this administration. Any former leader of that office would have done so by now.

But Maurene Comey’s firing is a bellwether of how far from normal DOJ’s response is and will continue to be. Previously, DOJ leadership did not hire or fire career prosecutors in individual U.S. Attorney’s Offices. Those career prosecutors have always, for good reason, served across administrations, regardless of who hired them and political affiliation. Why? Because a hallmark of the Department of Justice, a hallmark of a strong democracy, is having apolitical career prosecutors who are swayed only by the individual facts of a case, not who is in the White House or other positions of power. DOJ would not intervene in a case handled by a district office, let alone for patently bald political reasons. This administration has bulldozed those entrenched historical norms and has fired dozens of prosecutors for working on cases it does not like, and now seeks to take over one of the most sensitive parts of any criminal case involving potential cooperators. A DOJ weaponized on behalf of a political agenda and against the very apolitical career prosecutors we trust to carry out their duties impartially is the “tool of a tyrant,” indeed.

Mimi Rocah was the district attorney of Westchester County, New York, from 2021 to 2024 and was a federal prosecutor from 2001 to 2017. Jacqueline Kelly was an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York for more than nine years, most recently as chief of the Civil Rights Unit in the Criminal Division.

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