By Sarah N. Lynch and Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department has fired Maurene Comey, the eldest daughter of former FBI director James Comey and the federal prosecutor in the cases involving Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
James Comey was fired by President Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, and he is currently under investigation along with former CIA Director John Brennan.
Trump has previously attacked both Brennan and James Comey for their roles in the investigations about claims of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, which Trump won.
In a message Comey sent to her colleagues after she was fired, she urged them not to let fear prevent them from doing their jobs as prosecutors.
“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,” Comey wrote, according to a copy seen by Reuters.
“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.”
Her termination was reported earlier by Politico and ABC News.
Maurene Comey, who was an assistant U.S.
attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, was not provided an explanation for her firing and was given a memo that cited the president’s powers to terminate employees under Article 2 of the U.S.
Constitution, the two sources said, asking not to be identified.
In her messages to colleagues, Comey confirmed the memo she received “did not give a reason” for her termination.
Maurene Comey had successfully prosecuted Maxwell, a British socialite and associate of Epstein.
Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for helping accused sex offender and globetrotting financier Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.
The Epstein case has been in the news recently after the Trump administration reversed course last week on its pledge to release documents it had suggested contained major revelations about Epstein and his alleged clientele.
The reversal has enraged some of Trump’s most loyal followers.
Maurene Comey also prosecuted Combs, who is to be sentenced on October 3 after the music mogul was convicted on charges of transporting prostitutes to engage in drug-fueled sexual performances.
Combs, 55, remains in the Brooklyn jail where he has been held since his arrest last September. Jurors cleared him recently of the most serious charges he faced.
Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died by suicide in jail in 2019.
He had pleaded not guilty, and the case was dismissed after his death.
The Justice Department has been firing prosecutors who have worked on cases involving Trump or his political allies.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday fired more than a dozen DOJ employees who worked for Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump’s retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
(Reporting by Sarah N.
Lynch and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)
