UPDATE: Just over a day after the top prosecutor in the Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein cases was unceremoniously fired by Donald Trump’s Justice Department, Maurene Comey had a warning for America.
“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” the now former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said in a statement about the despotic shift occurring under the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host’s latest White House regime. “Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”
While never mentioning POTUS by name, the daughter of longtime Trump foil and former FBI Director James Comey made it very clear what her verdict was on her pink slipping – justice in America is in big trouble.
Read Comey’s full statement of July 17 here:
Yesterday was unexpectedly my last day in the Office. I was summarily fired via memo from Main Justice that did not give a reason for my termination.
Every person lucky enough to work in this office constantly hears four words to describe our ethos: Without Fear or Favor.
Do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons without fear of retribution and without favor to the powerful.
For the majority of my nearly ten years in SDNY, fear was never really conceivable. We don’t fear bad press; we have the luxury of exceptional security keeping us physically safe; and, so long as we did our work with integrity, we would get to keep serving the public in this office. Our focus was really on acting “without favor.” That is, making sure people with access, money, and power were not treated differently than anyone else; and making sure this office remained separate from politics and focused only on the facts and the law.
But we have entered a new phase where “without fear” may be the challenge. If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else.
It has been an honor to fight for those principles by your side.
Maurene
With the Comey firing not providing the distraction to the Epstein files uproar among Trump’s MAGA base that he likely hoped for, POTUS has found himself in an even brighter spotlight with a damning WSJ story on the sordid closeness he had with the billionaire sex offender back in the 1980s and 1990s. At this point, ordering AG Pam Bondi to release grand jury testimony, Trump has now threatened to sue his media patron Rupert Murdoch over the WSJ frontpage article.
Trump claims the lewd drawing and message the WSJ reported he allegedly sent Epstein for his 50th birthday is fake.
PREVIOUSLY, JULY 16 PM: It’s always personal with Donald Trump.
Eight years ago, Trump fired James Comey, and on Wednesday he fired the ex-FBI director’s daughter.
In a move that seemed a long time coming due to POTUS’ relentless dislike of Maurene Comey’s father over allegations that the Republican was a puppet of Russia president Vladimir Putin, the former Celebrity Apprentice host’s Department of Justice pink-slipped the top tier prosecutor today.
A longtime Assistant U.S. Attorney at the Southern District of New York office (that her father used to head), Comey was most recently the lead lawyer in the government’s not-so-successful sex-trafficking and racketeering case against Sean “Diddy” Combs. Well regarded by colleagues and most defense attorneys, Comey also worked on the criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein and his currently incarcerated right-hand lady Ghislaine Maxwell.
While the SDNY declined comment on Comey’s firing after a decade in the powerful office, three individuals with knowledge of events confirmed the axing to Deadline. In a manner that has become commonplace for career prosecutors who worked on cases against Trump or his pals over the years, Comey was fired via a DOJ letter, I’m told. Offering no reason for her termination, that correspondence looks to have been delivered via email.
Comey’s exit comes as significant voices in Trump’s MAGA base are in the closest thing to open revolt over the administration and the president himself now saying there is no there there when it comes to Epstein after years of promising to release files on the well-connected pedophile billionaire. Epstein died in prison in 2019 by what was termed a suicide under admittedly suspicious circumstances. Under pressure from his followers, and even rejecting his “PAST supporters,” a deflecting Trump on Tuesday said “these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden administration.”
Trump was a constant companion to Epstein over the decades before the law finally caught up with the financier, and made no secret about what was front and center. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years,” Trump said in a 2002 interview. “Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
(L-R) Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 1997
Davidoff Studios/Getty Images
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to make public the information the DOJ had on Epstein and the potential marquee names with which he had done sordid business. Earlier this year, once Trump was back in the White House, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had the list and the Epstein file on her desk. Even though it was revealed to not really contain anything new, the AG even invited friendly influencers and media to receive a much pumped-up binder on Epstein.
When the relationship between Trump and Elon Musk went sour, the world’s richest man took to his X social media platform June 5 to drop “the really big bomb” and declare that Trump “is in the Epstein files.” Musk added in the now delated post, “That is the real reason they have not been made public.”
So, the DOJ’s the sudden downplaying of any so-called “client list” or more in a recent memo now asserting Epstein did die by his own hand behind bars, and the release of a clearly edited security video poured gasoline onto a smoldering fire that has turned into a MAGA blaze, may have burned Maurene Comey.
Her firing, which many had expected any day once her presence on the Combs team became widely known and as her father again found himself in Trump’s glare this spring, will surely complicate the Combs case now that the defendant is awaiting sentencing on two lesser charges of transportation to engage in prostitution that he was found guilty of on July 2.
Having escaped the possible life imprisonment that he was looking at if found guilty by the jury in the six-week trial on the larger sex-trafficking and RICO charges, the Bad Boy Records founder is presently set to be sentenced October 3. Whether or not an appeal is launched and assuming Trump doesn’t decide to issue a much lobbied-for pardon, with time served since his September 2024 arrest, Combs could be out of jail within two years under sentencing guidelines.
Either way, Maurene Comey won’t be sitting at the prosecution desk of what is likely going to prove to have been her last case for the government.
