Federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was terminated by the Justice Department on Wednesday, according to four sources familiar with the matter.
It was not clear why Comey was fired. One of the sources said that Article II of the Constitution, which establishes the executive power of the president, was cited in Comey’s firing from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Nick Biase, a spokesperson for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment.
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Politico first reported on the termination.
Comey prosecuted Sean “Diddy” Combs during his sex trafficking trial this year. She also played a role in the prosecution of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and the prosecution and conviction of his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
The firing comes as Trump is under intensifying political pressure from his MAGA base to release information to the Epstein investigation. Trump has repeatedly defended Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision last week to decline to release any Epstein- documents.
Last week, the Justice Department and FBI released a two-page memo that contradicted multiple Epstein- theories, some of which have been propagated by Trump himself, his FBI director, Kash Patel, and FBI Deputy Director, Dan Bongino.
The memo said that an exhaustive FBI investigation had found no evidence that a list of Epstein’s clients, including prominent politicians and business figures, was being kept secret. It found no evidence that Epstein blackmailed those people or that evidence existed to prosecute any of them.
It also found that Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail in New York in 2019, rebutting assertions by some that the late financier had been murdered.
“This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’” the DOJ-FBI memo said. “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.”
Repeated efforts by Trump to persuade his supporters to stop focusing on the Epstein case have failed to quell demands from MAGA supporters for more transparency. In a setback for Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., supported the demands of multiple House members for the release of more Epstein documents.
The firing of Maurene Comey is likely to be seen by some as an effort to shift blame. On Tuesday, Trump, without citing evidence, accused James Comey, as well as former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, of making up Epstein documents.
“I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden,” Trump told members of the press at the White House.
The Justice Department prosecution of Epstein, as well as the late financier’s suicide, occurred in 2019 during Trump’s first term. Comey, Biden and Obama were out of power at that time. Trump’s second Attorney General, Bill Barr, oversaw the indictment of Epstein and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which operated the jail where Epstein died.
Maurene Comey’s father, James, has been a frequent target for Trump, who fired the FBI director in 2017. James Comey played a central role in a probe of Russia’s election interference efforts in the 2016 presidential election.