A former federal official is asking the Trump administration to identify aides who she says might have fed information about her firing last year to conservative social media influencer Laura Loomer.
Lawyers for Mary Comans, who a federal judge determined in July had been wrongly fired from her job as chief financial officer at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, appeared in court Tuesday as part of an effort to restore her reputation. The administration publicly accused Comans in 2025 of “circumventing leadership” and approving “egregious payments” that went toward housing undocumented migrants in New York City.
The day Comans was fired, Loomer, a conservative activist with a large online following, wrote on X that Comans was terminated for acting “illegally.”
Federal Judge Michael Nachmanoff ruled on July 17 that the firing violated federal law protecting civil servants, in response to a lawsuit Comans filed last year. The judge also ordered a “name clearing hearing” so Comans could rebut public accusations and restore her reputation. The administration has appealed the ruling.
On Tuesday, a federal magistrate judge overseeing the hearing put Comans’ request to begin the process of identifying federal officials who might have shared information with Loomer on hold.
Comans did not name Loomer as a defendant in the lawsuit, and she is not being asked to reveal potential sources.
“I simply reported a news story,” Loomer told POLITICO in an email. “I was not involved in her firing in any way.”
Comans’ legal team wants the administration to identify which employees released “stigmatizing statements” about Comans and those who might have “provided information … to Laura Loomer.”
The case could reveal behind-the-scenes efforts by the administration to discredit employees whom it has accused of being “deep state” operatives that are opposed to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
In federal court Tuesday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick shot down Justice Department efforts to delay Comans’ name clearing hearing and to have it be handled by the executive branch instead of the judiciary.
A delay would be “patently unfair,” Fitzpatrick said after DOJ attorney Steven Chasin argued the hearing should be pushed back until after the administration’s appeal is decided.
Fitzpatrick also brushed aside Chasin’s argument that Comans’ request for government records is “unwarranted and unsupported” and ordered both sides to file new briefs by Aug. 19. He did not rule on Comans’ records request and indicated that his forthcoming opinion could obviate the need for it.
Name clearing hearings are available to government employees who were fired or sharply disciplined for potentially serious misconduct that the government made public. They can lead courts to rule that the government made false statements about a fired employee.
Comans lost her job weeks after Trump took office, when he was assailing FEMA for acting too slowly under former President Joe Biden. He took aim at agency programs that helped fund temporary housing for undocumented migrants, without noting that a bipartisan majority in Congress voted in 2023 to approve the money for the housing initiatives.
Comans was fired shortly after processing $59 million in FEMA housing payments to New York City.
In an unusual move, the Department of Homeland Security announced the firing of Comans and three other unidentified FEMA employees.
A Feb. 11, 2025, news release said the four were “circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments for luxury NYC hotels for migrants” and that “DHS will not sit idly and allow deep state activists to undermine the will and safety of the American people.” DHS oversees FEMA.
Federal agencies do not regularly announce when employees are fired to avoid violating privacy laws, said Mark Zaid, Comans’ attorney.
“This Trump Administration has changed that. It now says, ‘We fired you,’ and why we fired you,” Zaid said after the Tuesday hearing. “This is the new normal.”
The DHS news release did not name Comans but said, “Firings include FEMA’s Chief Financial Officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist.”
The same day, Loomer wrote on X that Comans was fired for “illegally funding over $59 MILLION for illegal Aliens to stay in luxury hotels in NYC.” Loomer’s post was viewed more than 225,000 times and reposted nearly 4,000 times, according to a screenshot in Comans’ lawsuit.
The suit says the DHS press release and “other steps” by the administration led to Comans’ actions being “widely, publicly and falsely condemned as ‘illegal’ and ‘criminal’ by right-wing influencers.”
Nachmanoff, the judge that ruled the administration violated federal law, rejected the government’s argument that Trump could fire Comans without a hearing or an offer to transfer to another job.
The White House referred questions to DHS, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
