It’s unclear if Comey’s firing is at all tied to the ongoing controversy over the Epstein files, and it comes as numerous DOJ staff have separately been fired or left the agency voluntarily, with Reuters reporting two-thirds of the staff tasked with defending the administration’s policies have quit.

Maurene Comey, the Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor fired by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department — who went further than any of her peers in holding notorious sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and his convicted madame Ghislaine Maxwell to account — warned her longtime colleagues Thursday of a dark new era in which “fear is the tool of a tyrant.

Comey is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, who led SDNY from 2002 to 2003. Trump fired James Comey in May 2017 over his handling of the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails, but Democrats have said the move was a result of the FBI investigating alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia.