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Legal analysts are split after the Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, a veteran prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, on Wednesday.
“It’s about time,” said Nicole Parker, a former FBI agent and Fox News contributor. “She failed in two cases.”
One of those was the recent racketeering and sex trafficking case against hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, in which jurors found him not guilty of the most serious charges. The other was the 2019 prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein, which barely got off the ground before federal authorities say he killed himself in a jail cell awaiting trial.
MAURENE COMEY, PROSECUTOR IN ‘DIDDY,’ EPSTEIN, MAXWELL CASES, DAUGHTER OF EX FBI HEAD, FIRED FROM DOJ
Another of her past cases was the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, the only Epstein associate held liable by a civil or criminal court. Maxwell is appealing her case while serving 20 years in a federal prison in Florida.
Comey has received criticism for arguing in court against unsealing some court documents in the Epstein case. While there are a number of reasons why the government might want to keep them out of the public eye, including Maxwell’s pending appeal, President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi this week announced plans to ask a federal judge to unseal grand jury materials in the case.
BONDI SHOULD RELEASE ‘CREDIBLE’ EPSTEIN FILES, TRUMP SAYS
“There didn’t need to be any reason for her firing,” said David Gelman, a Philadelphia-area attorney and former prosecutor. “It could be job performance, which would be warranted because the Diddy trial was an absolute mess, and she was the head of it. The outcome was not what the SDNY wanted.”
Combs beat the most serious charges against him, including a federal RICO case full of salacious allegations and sex trafficking, and was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
“It could also be that she would have been fired previously, but they let her stay to try the Diddy case because of all the resources that were spent on it,” Gelman said. ” It won’t surprise me whatsoever if she goes to the anti-Trump shows and bashes the DOJ and administration. That’s the playbook for her family.”
FORMER FBI DIRECTOR COMEY’S DAUGHTER SUFFERS HIGH-PROFILE LOSS AS PROSECUTOR IN DIDDY TRIAL
Still, some analysts view her firing as a political move.
“The firing is pretty remarkable,” said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based attorney and adjunct law professor at Northwestern University. “It’s a very clear shot across the bow of everyone at the DOJ to get in line.”
Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo suggested another route could have been taken.
“I totally get why President Trump doesn’t trust her, if he believes what he says about Comey (her father), how he cooked up the Russia hoax,” Yoo told “The Story” Thursday. “Not the daughter, but the father, remember how he tried to entrap President Trump and ran back to his car and typed up and hid documents with friends, claiming that President Trump committed perjury.”
Still, he said, he doesn’t think the daughter’s firing was appropriate.
“I would just maybe reassign her to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska,” he said.
Comey is the daughter of former FBI head James Comey and a longtime federal prosecutor with the Southern District of New York.
Fox News Digital reported earlier this month that the FBI had launched criminal investigations into the elder Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan.
President Trump fired her father from the FBI during his first term. When asked why Trump fired the younger Comey during a news briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the decision came from inside the Justice Department.
Comey did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Fox News’ Jake Gibson and Landon Mion contributed to this report.
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