WASHINGTON — Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey who as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan worked on cases against Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein, said in a note to colleagues that “fear is the tool of a tyrant” and that her firing without reason should fuel “a fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power.”

“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” Comey said in the note, which was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press. “Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”

“Instead of fear,” she said, “let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else.”

Until her firing Wednesday, Comey had been a veteran lawyer in the Southern District of New York. Her cases included the sex trafficking prosecution of Epstein, a financier who killed himself behind bars in 2019 as he was awaiting trial, and the recent case against Combs, which ended this month with a mixed verdict.

Her termination represented the latest Justice Department effort to fire lawyers without explanation, a trend that has raised alarm over a disregard for civil service protections designed to prevent terminations for political reasons.

The department has also fired a number of prosecutors who worked on cases that have provoked President Donald Trump’s ire, including some who handled U.S. Capitol riot cases and lawyers and support staff who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of the Republican president.

She was long seen as a potential target, given her father’s fraught relationship over the past decade with Trump. The DOJ recently appeared to acknowledge the existence of an investigation into James Comey, although the basis for that inquiry is unclear.

Asked about the firing Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “This was a decision made by the Department of Justice.”

Comey had most recently been among the prosecutors in the sex trafficking and racketeering case against Combs.

The failure to convict the hip-hop mogul of the main charges, while gaining a conviction on prostitution-related charges that will likely result in a prison sentence of just a few years, was viewed by some fellow lawyers as a rare defeat for prosecutors.

But she was successful in other prosecutions, most notably the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell on sex trafficking charges for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. In that case, she delivered a rebuttal argument during closings, as she did in the Combs case.

Her father was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration.

But his relationship with Trump was strained from the start. The FBI director resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved him that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump soon after fired the FBI director amid an investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, would ultimately find that while Russia interfered with the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

Trump’s fury at the older Comey continued after firing him from the bureau. Comey later published a book calling Trump “ego driven.” Trump, for his part, has accused him and other officials of treason.