Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Maurene Comey, a Southern District of New York prosecutor who had previously prosecuted deceased child sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Politico reported on Wednesday.
Comey, a senior trial lawyer, is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, whom President Trump fired in 2017.
“The reason for her firing was not immediately clear. She did not immediately respond to phone calls and an email seeking comment,” Politico said. “Comey, who had worked in the U.S. attorney’s office for nearly a decade, prosecuted both Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.”
Maurene Comey’s dismissal from the DOJ comes during a probe into her father, who uploaded an image of seashells on a seashore organized to read “86 47.”
Many argued that Comey’s use of the “86” jargon was meant to advocate for the president’s killing. The New York Times reported last week that the Secret Service had tracked down the former FBI director following the incident.
Bondi insisted during a Tuesday press conference that she would remain in her position for as long as President Donald Trump wanted her to, despite receiving a lot of backlash over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
“Madam Attorney General, on this matter, it’s a priority clearly to DEA and the Department of Justice. Are you confident you’re going to still be here to execute this because there’s so many people calling for change at the Department of Justice?” a reporter asked.
“I’m going to be here for as long as the president wants me here, and I believe he’s made that crystal-clear – it’s four years. Well, three and a half now, right, we got six months in. Yeah, it feels like six years,” Bondi responded.