By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is seeking dismissal of a lawsuit that fired former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey brought against it, saying she didn’t properly follow administrative complaint procedures before suing.

The argument was in court papers filed Monday prior to a Thursday hearing in Manhattan federal court.

In September, Comey sued the department, the Executive Office of the President, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the Office of Personnel Management and the United States.

The lawsuit said her July firing was based on political reasons, including that her father is former FBI Director James Comey. President Donald Trump fired James Comey in 2017.

The Justice Department indicated its defense to the lawsuit in a joint letter submitted to Judge Jesse M. Furman by Maurene Comey’s lawyers and the chief of the civil division of the federal prosecutor’s office in Albany.

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It said her lawsuit was not properly before the court because she did not fully comply with administrative procedures requiring the Merit Systems Protection Board to first consider her claim. It rejected her lawsuit’s claim that the notice of appeal she filed with the board was futile.

The board, the Justice Department maintained, was “the appropriate forum to determine whether, as Ms. Comey claims, her removal was a prohibited personnel action or an arbitrary and capricious agency action.”

Maurene Comey’s lawyers said in the filing that the board “lacks expertise to adjudicate this novel dispute” and was not an appropriate forum because “this case raises foundational constitutional questions with respect to the separation of powers.” They also argued that it was “no longer true” that the board functions independently of the president.

Last month, U.S. Attorney John Sarcone in Albany took the case after the recusal of prosecutors in New York, where Maurene Comey had secured guilty verdicts in several high-profile cases, including the sex trafficking conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell and the bribery convictions of former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife.

Two weeks before Maurene Comey was fired, a jury convicted music maven Sean Combs of prostitution-related charges, though it acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. She led the prosecution team. Combs, 56, is scheduled for release from prison in June 2028.

Maxwell, 63, was convicted in December 2021 on sex trafficking charges after a jury found she aided the sex abuse of girls and women by financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was found dead in his federal jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited a sex trafficking charge. His death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, where she was transferred last summer from a prison in Florida.

Robert Menendez, 71, is imprisoned in Pennsylvania. He is scheduled for release in September 2034.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 54-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of throwing Molotov cocktails at the Los Angeles Federal Building, authorities said Tuesday. Nobody was hurt.

Security guards heard a man yelling derogatory comments about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside the downtown building on Monday, according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

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He then hurled two incendiary devices at the guards, the department said.

“Fortunately, the bottles were not lit and did not catch fire and there were no injuries or damage to federal property,” the DHS statement said.

FBI agents arrested Jose F. Jovel, of Los Angeles, said bureau spokesperson Laura Eimiller. She said federal prosecutors were expected to file a criminal complaint on Tuesday.

It wasn’t known Tuesday if Jovel has an attorney. The Federal Public Defender’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a phone call asking if one of its attorneys is representing him.

Jovel, who had four knives on him when he was arrested, has an “extensive criminal history,” including an attempted murder charge in 1987, the DHS statement said.

Messages were sent to the U.S. Attorney’s Office seeking additional details.

By GEOFF MULVIHILL and DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will move to withhold SNAP food aid from recipients in most Democratic-controlled states starting next week unless they provide information on those receiving the assistance.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that the action is in the works because those states are refusing to provide information the department requested such as the names and immigration status of the aid recipients.

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She said the cooperation is necessary in order to root out fraud in the program. Democratic states have sued to block the requirement.

About 1 in 8 Americans use the program to help buy groceries.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

“Passing the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) in 2025 would send a clear message: city policies must shift power back to tenants and communities, not bolster investors trying to price them out.”

Councilmember Sandy Nurse, COPA’s lead sponsor, at a rally for the bill in November. (Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit)

The 37th Council District includes neighborhoods that have experienced waves of disinvestment and predatory investment at the hands of the real estate industry for over a century, like East New York. Recently, a group of neighborhood activists formed the East New York Community Land Trust (ENYCLT) to counteract this exploitative cycle, preserve housing affordability, and build generational wealth. Last year, ENYCLT purchased a 20-unit building from a neglectful landlord and is in the process of turning it into an affordable cooperative.

ENYCLT’s proof of concept is just across the East River: New York City’s oldest community land trust, Cooper Square, on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. A product of a multi-decade struggle, Cooper Square formed to fight against Robert Moses’ urban renewal plans and to gain control over their neighborhood’s destiny. Today, the CLT oversees the land beneath 23 buildings, preserving affordability in what has become an expensive neighborhood.

In an expensive real estate market like New York City’s, mission-driven developers like ENYCLT and Cooper Square have trouble competing with deep-pocketed investors. Speculators can move quickly with all-cash offers, closing deals before a non-profit can even assemble financing.

Unfortunately, speculative investment undercuts the quality of the city’s housing stock. As a 2022 report by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, University Neighborhood Housing Program and New School University showed, buildings with speculative landlords have higher eviction rates and lower housing quality, leading to long term distress. In contrast, affordable housing investments create better-maintained homes.

We believe that the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) can help level the playing field between mission-driven developers and speculative investors. COPA would give pre-screened, mission-driven developers the first chance to bid on certain rental buildings when they go up for sale, interrupting the predatory cycle that is causing the quality of our rental housing stock to decline and becoming an important tool for advancing principled, long-term community ownership.

We know COPA works. San Francisco passed a similar law in 2019 and in the years since, the law has proven effective at preserving affordability in rent-controlled buildings. For example, the Mission Economic Development Agency—founded in 1973 to promote equitable economic development for working-class Latino households in San Francisco’s Mission District—has successfully closed eight COPA-facilitated purchases, each one in close partnership with the building’s tenants. These purchases were made possible with a mix of public and private financing.

New York’s version of COPA would similarly leverage existing public financing tools, such as the recently relaunched Neighborhood Pillars program that provides construction and permanent financing, along with property tax exemptions to stabilize and preserve multifamily affordable housing.

New York City was once a leader in converting distressed rental properties into tenant- and community-controlled housing. In the 1980s, the Community Service Society’s* Ownership Transfer Program worked with the city to take buildings away from tax-delinquent slumlords and transfer them into the hands of the tenants who had long endured poor conditions. In recent decades, however, the city has retreated from its commitment to tenant ownership, and has instead allowed financially distressed buildings to be snapped up by corporate conglomerates.

Today, hundreds of thousands of tenants in New York City are rent burdened, and federal cuts threaten to throw even more families into economic instability. COPA offers New York a practical, proven path to help residents stay in their homes, protect neighborhoods from speculative buying, and build long-term community control. 

Passing COPA in 2025 would send a clear message: city policies must shift power back to tenants and communities, not bolster investors trying to price them out.

Sandy Nurse is a New York City Council member representing the 37th Council District, which includes neighborhoods of Bushwick, Brownsville, Cypress Hills, Cityline and East New York. David R. Jones, Esq. is President and chief executive officer of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS).

*Editor’s note: Co-author Jones is a City Limits’ board member, and Community Service Society is among City Limits’ funders.

The post Opinion: New York’s Opportunity for Community Ownership appeared first on City Limits.