Maurene Comey, the daughter of the former FBI director James Comey, was unlawfully fired from her job as a federal prosecutor in New York last year, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

Judge Jesse Furman said that Comey, who was an assistant US attorney for a decade, was illegally fired in July 2025 despite her work on some of the nation’s highest-profile cases and consistently receiving “the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike”.

After her firing, Comey sued the justice department and others, saying her termination violated the constitutional separation of powers, the first amendment and the due process clause of the fifth amendment.

She asserted that she was fired because she was the daughter of James Comey, a longtime foe of Donald Trump, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, the judge noted.

Furman rejected the government’s claim that Comey could be fired because federal prosecutors exercise the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers.

“The Court concludes the Defendants are wrong,” the judge wrote.

He said the government’s claim that Congress is barred from regulating the removal of federal prosecutors “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent”.

Furman added: “Indeed, to accept Defendants’ argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.”

The justice department did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.