Judge Orders Back Pay for Fired Trump Critic's Daughter

Judge Jesse Furman ordered the Trump administration to pay back wages to Maurene Comey, a former federal prosecutor who lost her job in July 2025. The United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York issued the ruling on Monday, determining that the government fired an inferior officer without cause.

Furman rejected the White House argument that the president holds unrestricted authority to remove such employees. He stated that accepting the government's position would unsettle the constitutional balance established by the nation's system. The judge wrote that the administration invented a new and expansive theory of executive power to remove branch employees who previously held protections from removal.

Maurene Comey served as an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan from 2015 until her firing. Her legal team argued that her position was terminated due to the president's antipathy toward her father, James Comey. James Comey led the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2013 to 2017 and was fired during the president's first term. He has since become a prominent critic of Donald Trump.

The court granted Comey's request for back pay from her dismissal date of July 16, 2025, through December. The judge also awarded her retroactive reinstatement for that period. Comey alleged that her firing violated federal laws prohibiting the termination of civil servants for political reasons. She cited the separation of powers under the US Constitution, which allows Congress to regulate federal employees as long as it does not interfere with presidential authority.

The Department of Justice under the current administration has maintained that the president has wide latitude to fire federal employees without cause. In response to Monday's decision, the administration said it disagrees with the ruling and will appeal in due course. The ruling serves as a setback for an executive branch that has sought to reduce the size of the federal government and remove prosecutors involved in cases the president opposes.

James Comey, the former FBI director, has faced multiple legal challenges under the current administration. In September 2025, President Trump called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue charges against Comey and others. Trump posted on social media that there is a great case and that justice must be served now. He noted that he was impeached twice and indicted five times over what he described as nothing.

Shortly after that social media post, the Department of Justice charged James Comey with lying to Congress. A judge dismissed that case in November after finding the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed. In April, Comey was charged in a separate case accusing him of threatening the president by sharing an image of seashells on social media.

The seashells in the image were arranged to form the numbers 86 47. The administration argued that the term 86 is used in the restaurant industry to refer to throwing someone out and is associated with organized crime. The number 47 referred to the 47th president. The ex-FBI chief has denounced the case as an example of political persecution.