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The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where Maurene Comey used to work, wouldn't touch the case. The whole office took itself out.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, whose lawyers have worked with her on joint investigations and prosecutions, wouldn't touch it. Neither would the Federal Programs Branch of the Justice Department's Civil Division, which often handles high-profile litigation. They wouldn't touch it either. It took a story in The New York Times about how no one wanted to handle the case for the embattled acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York to file a letter stating that his office would take it on. I say embattled because the judges in the district rejected him as U.S. Attorney, leading to a complicated set of maneuvers to keep him in place on an interim basis. He may be unqualified, but he is a dedicated Trumper.

The spectre of whole offices taking themselves out of a case -- let alone three doing so -- should be newsworthy. Early on, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum stating that Justice Department lawyers who didn't do what they were told to do would be fired (so much for the higher oath to the Constitution). So now, rather than leave it to individual prosecutors to face the consequences, the whole office takes itself off.

What is this case that is so odious that the Justice Department has trouble finding an office willing to take it on?

It is that bad.

Maurene Comey was a career prosecutor in the federal office in New York for ten years, one of their star trial lawyers. Her reviews were all outstanding and exemplary. She tried some of the office's most high-profile cases. Her husband worked in the civil division of the office. She did nothing wrong. That is the gist of her lawsuit. That, and the fact that she was fired under the direct authority of the president of the United States for no reason other than that he hates her father.

Laura Loomer strikes again. Trump's vigilante enforcer of loyalty above all, who collects scalps of those she has successfully attacked, has had Ms. Comey in her sights all year. She called for her to be fired as a "national security risk" because of her "proximity to a criminal," her father. And she was.

The email, which caught her own office by surprise, gave no reason for her termination, telling her only that she was being fired "pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution," which defines the powers of the president. And does not include the right to fire civil servants arbitrarily and capriciously, without cause, without due process. At least no court has ever so held, and the Civil Service system has protected them from such actions since former President Theodore Roosevelt's day.

So Maurene Comey brought suit, and her suit languished for two months. There is a good reason that three offices refused to touch it: it is simply indefensible. What is the embattled interim Trumper making a fool of yet another U.S. Attorney's Office actually going to say? That the president has the power to fire whoever he wants for whatever reason he wants even if it is family retaliation? That his power, or your defense of it, has no limits? Is that really a position that any Justice Department lawyer sworn to uphold the Constitution should ever take? It is not. They'll be digging for whatever dirt they can find after the fact about Maurene Comey, as if it had anything to do with her dismissal. Barring that, what else can they say? That the civil service laws are an unconstitutional limit on presidential power? That President Donald Trump is free to avenge himself whenever and however he chooses? That Laura Loomer trumps the law?

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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