An attorney who represented a government whistleblower in a case that led to President Donald Trump‘s first impeachment sued the Trump administration this week.
Lawyer Mark Zaid argued that the administration’s decision to pull his clearance in March was in retaliation for representing a whistleblower who was key to Trump’s 2019 impeachment and amounts to “unconstitutional retaliation”.
The whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump, amid his re-election campaign, pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate then-U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted later that year to impeach Trump for abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress. Trump was ultimately acquitted by the Senate.
According to Fox News, Zaid’s lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., claims the decision to rescind his security clearance represents a “dangerous, unconstitutional retaliation by the President of the United States against his perceived political enemies” that “eschews any semblance of due process.”
The complaint accuses the Trump administration of violating the Administrative Procedures Act, the First Amendment and parts of the Fifth Amendment.
“No American should lose their livelihood, or be blocked as a lawyer from representing clients, because a president carries a grudge toward them or who they represent,” Zaid said in a statement. “This isn’t just about me. It’s about using security clearances as political weapons.”
The lawsuit cited a 2019 incident in which Trump called Zaid a “sleazeball” at a Louisiana rally and told reporters that the lawyer was a “disgrace” who “should be sued.”
The move to pull Zaid’s clearance was “a bald-faced attack on a sacred constitutional guarantee: the right to petition the court or federal agencies on behalf of clients,” the lawsuit says, noting that an “attack on this right is especially insidious because it jeopardizes Mr. Zaid’s ability to pursue and represent the rights of others without fear of retribution.”
President Trump has notably pulled security clearance for a number of high-profile figures including former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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Why Security Clearance was pulled from Hillary Clinton, Liz Cheney and others, was because for one, they only used it to build bogus cases against Trump, such as the Steel Dossier, tied to the Russia Gate BS that cost taxpayers en excess of $48 Million for the Mueller Commission to come UP WITH NOTHING – NADA – ZILCH.
For another thing; they are now CIVILIANS, with no connection to government work so why do they need Security Clearance Clearance?
What legal activity has Mark Zaid been performing during this interim period that would have continued the need for his security clearance, at any level, to remain active? As soon as a need for maintaining a security clearance ends, that clearance is subject to termination. A security clearance is supposed to end upon retirements, or job terminations where the clearance was activate. If a new job arises requiring a clearance, then the terminated clearance must be reviewed for reactivation, which may or may not occur.
The President has correctly had clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others terminated, because they no longer have any actual need for their clearances to be maintained. There may well be NO constitutional issues here. No one has an automatic constitutional right to a security clearance, at any level.