A federal judge rejected the Trump administration's bid to invoke executive privilege as former FBI Director James Comey's daughter seeks to find out who fired her and why.
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman denied the request in a written order Tuesday in Manhattan, where former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey is suing over her 2025 termination.
He denied it "largely for the reasons stated in Plaintiff's opposition," Furman wrote, adopting her lawyers' answer to the privilege claim as his own.
Executive privilege was the first reason the Justice Department gave in June when it argued that the case should be paused.
Discovery would "immediately implicate executive-privilege issues," the department said. Forcing the issue would set "coequal branches of the Government" on a "collision course," the department warned, quoting the Supreme Court.
But Comey's lawyers called the privilege argument "premature and unfounded," noting the cases the department cited involved records that personally concerned the president or vice president.
"In sum, Defendants cannot use executive privilege as a sword, rather than a shield, to forestall or foreclose discovery," her lawyers wrote.
Furman found the discovery she seeks "relatively targeted," and said any burdens could be handled through the court's "traditional discovery management toolkit."
Comey alleges she was fired because of her father, a longtime target of President Donald Trump, or her perceived politics, her complaint says.
A memo sent by email at 4:57 p.m. on July 16, 2025, removed her immediately, citing only Article II of the Constitution, and the government has since conceded she was an "outstanding" employee not fired for cause.
"All I can say is it came from Washington. I can't tell you anything else," then-interim U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton told her, according to her complaint. The government now says former Attorney General Pam Bondi fired her, but her lawyers wrote that no government record shows Bondi ever directed it.
Their initial disclosures named no witnesses at all, not even Bondi, her lawyers wrote.
James Comey was himself indicted in 2025 by a prosecutor Bondi installed, Lindsey Halligan, and a judge dismissed the charges after finding her appointment unlawful.
The Justice Department is appealing that ruling.
