Justice Department moves to shut down Maurene Comey’s lawsuit over her firing, arguing she skipped required steps

The US Justice Department is pushing to have former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey’s lawsuit tossed, telling a Manhattan court she failed to follow the mandatory administrative process before suing, and that her claim of political retaliation belongs before a federal personnel board, not a judge.

In a filing submitted Monday ahead of a Thursday hearing, government lawyers said Comey, who was fired in July, never properly pursued her challenge with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the body that handles complaints about improper dismissals of federal employees. Her suit names the Justice Department, the Executive Office of the President, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the Office of Personnel Management and the United States.

Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, ousted by Donald Trump in 2017, alleges her firing was politically motivated, noting her father’s long-running confrontation with the president and her own record prosecuting high-profile defendants like Ghislaine Maxwell and former Senator Bob Menendez. She argues the decision to terminate her was “arbitrary, capricious and unlawful.”

The Justice Department says this is all premature.

In a joint letter to Judge Jesse M. Furman, DOJ lawyers said Comey’s claim “should be dismissed” because federal law requires the MSPB to consider such disputes first. They rejected her contention that appealing to the board would be “futile,” insisting it is “the appropriate forum to determine whether, as Ms Comey claims, her removal was a prohibited personnel action.”

Comey’s legal team countered that the board “lacks expertise to adjudicate this novel dispute,” arguing it raises fundamental separation-of-powers questions, and asserting the MSPB “is no longer truly independent from the president,” making it an unsuitable venue for a case involving alleged political retaliation.

Maurene Comey’s firing came just two weeks after she secured a prostitution-related conviction against music mogul Sean Combs (who was acquitted of more serious trafficking and racketeering charges). That followed her earlier role in the Maxwell and Menendez prosecutions, all cases that brought her national attention.

With prosecutors in New York recusing themselves from her lawsuit, the case was transferred to US Attorney John Sarcone in Albany. The Justice Department maintains that the process must go through the MSPB before any court can weigh in.