The Department of Justice has fired Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in the prestigious Southern District of New York and the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, one of the President’s most prominent political antagonists.

The official justification offered for this extraordinary move was not related to performance or conduct, but was a stark and deliberate invocation of raw constitutional power:

“Article II.”

This is not a simple personnel decision. It is a profound and cautionary moment for the rule of law in America. The firing of a high-profile prosecutor involved in the politically explosive Jeffrey Epstein case, justified by a claim of absolute presidential authority, forces a critical examination of the guardrails that are meant to protect our justice system from political interference.

A Firing Justified by Constitutional Theory

The administration’s citation of “Article II” is not a bureaucratic explanation; it is a constitutional declaration. It is a direct reference to the “unitary executive theory,” a legal doctrine holding that the President, as the head of the executive branch, possesses the absolute authority to control the entirety of that branch, including the power to hire and fire subordinates at will.

From this perspective, a federal prosecutor is an employee who serves at the pleasure of the President, and no further justification for their removal is needed.

This legal theory, however, stands in direct tension with a long-standing and vital norm in American governance: the operational independence of the Department of Justice.

The Norm of an Independent Justice Department

Since the Watergate crisis of the 1970s, a critical firewall has been observed between the White House and the day-to-day investigative and prosecutorial decisions of the Department of Justice.

This norm is essential for maintaining public faith in the impartial administration of justice. It exists to ensure that the decision of who to charge with a crime is based on facts and law, not on their political allegiance or their relationship to the President.

The firing of a prosecutor who played a key role in the Epstein case—a case that has caused the President significant political grief with his own base—shatters this norm. It creates the unmistakable appearance that the decision was not administrative, but retaliatory.

It suggests that a prosecutor’s proximity to a politically inconvenient case can make their position untenable, a chilling development for the principle of equal justice under law.

A Chilling Message to Federal Prosecutors

This action is about more than one prosecutor. It sends a powerful and dangerous message to the thousands of Assistant U.S. Attorneys across the country. The message is that their careers are not safe if their work—however professional or apolitical—becomes politically inconvenient for the White House.

This creates a perverse incentive. It encourages prosecutors, consciously or subconsciously, to consider the political ramifications of their cases.

Will this investigation anger the President’s allies? Will this indictment cause a political headache for the administration?

These are questions that have no place in a system of impartial justice. The moment a prosecutor begins to weigh political outcomes, the rule of law has been compromised.

The specific reasons for Maurene Comey’s dismissal may remain shrouded in internal deliberations. But the administration’s public justification—a raw assertion of presidential power under Article II—is what is constitutionally significant.

A justice system where prosecutors must constantly look over their shoulder, fearful of the political consequences of their work, is a justice system in peril. The line between the impartial rule of law and the exercise of raw political power has been dangerously blurred. It is a line our constitutional order cannot afford to erase.