The Justice Division will search to dismiss a lawsuit that former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey brought against it, arguing she did not correctly observe administrative criticism procedures earlier than suing.
The federal government laid out its argument in courtroom papers filed Monday previous to a Thursday listening to in Manhattan federal courtroom.
Comey, a former federal prosecutor in New York who dealt with prison circumstances towards Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, sued the Trump administration in September over her firing in July, saying her ouster was “illegal and unconstitutional.” Of their complaint, Comey’s attorneys argued that her termination was “politically motivated” and an overreach of presidential authority.
Comey is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, who has publicly clashed with President Trump for years. In 2017, Mr. Trump terminated James Comey as FBI director, amid the division’s investigation into any ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.
James Comey was indicted by a grand jury in September on two counts associated to testimony he offered to Congress in September 2020. He has pleaded not guilty. A federal choose final week ordered the criminal charges against him be dismissed on the grounds that Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. legal professional who secured the indictment, was unlawfully appointed to the position. Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi instructed reporters that the Justice Division will “be taking all out there authorized motion, together with a direct enchantment.”
The Justice Division indicated its deliberate protection to Maurene Comey’s lawsuit in a joint letter submitted Monday to Decide Jesse M. Furman by Maurene Comey’s attorneys and the chief of the civil division of the federal prosecutor’s workplace in Albany.
The federal government’s sections within the letter argued her lawsuit was not correctly earlier than the courtroom as a result of she didn’t totally adjust to administrative procedures requiring the Advantage Programs Safety Board to first think about her declare. It rejected her lawsuit’s declare that the discover of enchantment she filed with the board in August was futile.
The board, the Justice Division maintained within the letter, was “the suitable discussion board to find out whether or not, as Ms. Comey claims, her removing was a prohibited personnel motion or an arbitrary and capricious company motion.”
Maurene Comey’s attorneys mentioned within the submitting that the board “lacks experience to adjudicate this novel dispute” and was not an applicable discussion board as a result of “this case raises foundational constitutional questions with respect to the separation of powers.” Additionally they argued that it was “now not true” that the board capabilities independently of the president.
A lawyer for Maurene Comey referred CBS Information to the letter on Tuesday.
Earlier than her firing in July, Maurene Comey was an assistant U.S. legal professional within the high-profile U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in Manhattan, the place she had labored since 2015. Her attorneys wrote of their lawsuit that she was fired in the future after she had “been requested to take the lead on a significant public corruption case.” Simply months earlier than, she had obtained an “excellent” evaluation from supervisors, the criticism mentioned.
Final month, U.S. Lawyer John Sarcone in Albany took on the case and indicated his workplace will defend the Trump administration within the lawsuit. The transfer adopted the recusal of prosecutors in Manhattan, the place Maurene Comey had secured responsible verdicts in a number of high-profile circumstances, together with the intercourse trafficking conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell and the bribery convictions of former Sen. Bob Menendez and his spouse.
Two weeks earlier than Maurene Comey was fired, a jury convicted Combs of prostitution-related expenses, although it acquitted him of extra severe intercourse trafficking and racketeering conspiracy expenses. She led the prosecution workforce. Combs, 56, is scheduled for launch from jail in June 2028.
Maxwell, 63, was convicted in December 2021 on intercourse trafficking expenses after a jury discovered she aided the intercourse abuse of women and girls by convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was discovered lifeless in his federal jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited a intercourse trafficking cost. His loss of life was dominated a suicide. Maxwell is serving a 20-year jail sentence at a jail camp in Texas, the place she was transferred final summer time from a jail in Florida.
Robert Menendez, 71, is imprisoned in Pennsylvania. He’s scheduled for launch in September 2034.
