Maurene Comey Secures Partnership at Venerable Law Firm as She Accuses Trump of ‘Complete Destruction’ of DOJ Norms

Maurene Comey has signed on the dotted line to join a New York law firm as a partner — even as her lawsuit against the Trump Administration works its way through the federal courts.The daughter of the former FBI director James Comey will join Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, and focus on white collar defense. That marks a pivot from her previous job as a federal prosecutor at the Southern District of New York, where she served as an assistant United States attorney for a decade until she was fired in July. Her father briefly led the same office two decades ago.Ms. Comey, who led cases against Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Senator Robert Menendez, alleges that she was fired unlawfully. She wrote in a letter to her erstwhile colleagues that WORD MISSING intended to fight against “the tool of a tyrant,” an allusion to President Trump. This week she lamented to the Times about the “complete destruction of the space between politics and the Department of Justice.”Ms. Comey filed her lawsuit in December in the same SDNY where she served as a prosecutor, but the case is being litigated by staff from the Northern District of New York because of the conflict of interest presented by Ms. Comey’s tenure in the Manhattan-based jurisdiction. The government has also moved to dismiss the lawsuit, in which Ms. Comey calls herself “an exemplary, dedicated, and highly decorated public servant.” The lawsuit will be overseen by Judge Jesse Furman, an appointee of President Obama.Ms. Comey alleges that her “termination—without cause, without advance notice, and without any opportunity to contest it—was unlawful and unconstitutional.” She contends that she was fired with “no legitimate explanation” and that she was terminated “solely or substantially because her father is former FBI Director James B. Comey, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”Ms. Comey, who points to social media posts calling for her firing from, among others, Laura Loomer, reckons that her firing “upends bedrock principles of our democracy and justice system.” She argues that “the executive branch cannot use Article II to overrule Congress and remove career civil servants for perceived disloyalty. Such an act violates the Constitution’s fundamental Separation of Powers.”The White House Press Secretary has said only that the firing of Ms. Comey “was a decision that was made by the Department of Justice.” Ms. Comey writes in her complaint that when she asked the United States Attorney for the SDNY, Jay Clayton, about the reason for her firing he “responded, in sum and substance: ‘All I can say is it came from Washington. I can’t tell you anything else.’”Just days before Ms. Comey filed her suit, her father secured the dismissal of the criminal charges for lying to Congress levied against him by the DOJ. Mr. Comey successfully argued that the prosecutor who was pursuing him, Lindsey Halligan of the Eastern District of Virginia, was unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Mr. Comey joined forces with New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who was pressing the same argument. An appointee of President Clinton’s who presides in South Carolina, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, disqualified Ms. Halligan.The DOJ has appealed that ruling as it relates to both defendants, but the case against Mr. Comey will likely be more difficult to resuscitate because the statute of limitations for the crimes of which he is accused — lying to Congress about leaks relating to the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election —expired just days after he was charged. Some ambiguity surrounds whether a case can be revived in such circumstances following a dismissal. Patterson Belknapp, which is more than a century old, is unusual in that it has only one Manhattan office. Past partners at the firm have included District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Among its alumni is Judge Robert Sack of the Second United States Appeals Circuit, an authority on libel and slander who was formerly general counsel of Dow Jones. Some 200 lawyers work at Patterson. The firm in a statement trumpets that Ms. Comey “handled 11 jury trials, supervised 17 additional jury trials, and briefed or argued 14 appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.”

Maurene Comey Secures Partnership at Venerable Law Firm as She Accuses Trump of ‘Complete Destruction’ of DOJ Norms

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