James Comey warned of a “grave danger” to public trust in federal law enforcement after the Department of Justice fired his daughter, Maurene Comey, from her role as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
In a video posted to Substack on Sunday, the former FBI director whom Donald Trump fired for malfeasance during his first term reacted to his daughter’s dismissal last week, echoing a well-worn Democratic narrative that the president is relentlessly “hammering” the DOJ and undermining its independence.
Maurene Comey most recently led the prosecution of hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and previously played a key role in the high-profile cases against Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, Newsweek reported.
The DOJ did not provide a reason for her dismissal. However, the timing—amid lingering controversy and growing suspicion over the handling of the Epstein investigation—has further fueled an already politically charged climate, Newsweek claimed.
James Comey said there was a “reservoir of trust and credibility” in the DOJ, but it was at risk because of the department’s recent actions.
He read out a letter his daughter wrote reacting to her firing and said: “I don’t have much to add to that, except to say: the reservoir is in grave danger right now.”
Continuing, he said, “Trump and the hacks who lead the Department of Justice are hammering at the dam day after day, trying to turn it into just another gold-leaf-covered Trump subsidiary.
“Our best hope is that good people will stay and do what Maureen asked—have the courage to do the right thing, always. You may get fired for acting that way, but there’s honor in that—and nothing but disgrace for those who don’t stand up,” Comey said.
WATCH:
Comey was appointed FBI director in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama. He played a key role in the 2016 presidential race when he reopened an investigation into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server just days before the election.
In 2017, Trump fired Comey, officially citing his handling of that probe.
Critics, however, argued the real motive may have been Comey’s role in the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, all of which turned out to be a giant hoax, as evidenced by years of post-election evidence.
Meanwhile, former Obama administration officials implicated in fresh disclosures about the genesis of the Trump-Russia inquiry have remained silent despite charges that they “manufactured” intelligence that led to the probe’s inception years ago.
Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, declassified documents on Friday that revealed “overwhelming evidence” of how, after Trump won the 2016 election, Obama and his national security team laid the groundwork for the years-long Trump-Russia collusion investigation, Conservative Brief reported on Tuesday.
Gabbard said that the records proved that Obama administration officials “manufactured and politicized intelligence” to construct the story that Russia was seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election, despite intelligence community findings to the contrary.
The new docs name Obama, Comey, and top National Security Council officials who were serving at the time.
Gabbard issued a criminal referral to the Justice Department on Monday in connection with those findings. DOJ authorities did not provide any more information on who the criminal referral was for.
Gabbard told Fox News Digital that this “is not a partisan issue,” but one that “concerns every American.”
“The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government,” Gabbard told Fox News Digital.
“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,” she added.