A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration broke the law when it fired Maurene Comey from her job as a federal prosecutor last year, Politico reports.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman wrote that her termination from her longtime job as a prosecutor in Manhattan wasn't authorized by any statute and violated the Civil Service Reform Act. Politico says the ruling sharply curbs the administration's attempt to advance a "sweeping theory" of executive power. ABC Politics adds that the judge, in New York, ruled against President Donald Trump and the Justice Department. It identifies Comey as the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey and says she worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department argued that Article II of the Constitution, which outlines the powers of the president, bars Congress from regulating the removal of federal prosecutors. Furman rejected that. He said the argument "flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent."
His ruling puts the administration's own framing on the record:
[I]n purporting to fire Comey pursuant to Article II and the laws of the United States, Defendants invented a new and expansive theory of executive power.
That is Furman writing, in the opinion, about the defendants. The coverage we have doesn't say what remedy he ordered or whether the administration will appeal.