After his security authorization revoked by President Donald Trump, the lawyer of High Profile complainants, Mark Zaid, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration who sought to restore his security authorization, saying that he was revoked by “inappropriate political remuneration.”
“The Trump administration is trying to neutralize someone seen as an adverse threat,” said the complaint, presented at Washington, DC.
In March, Trump issued a presidential memorandum that revoked the security authorizations of more than a dozen people, including Zaid, former President Joe Biden, former vice president Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, a measure that the complaint says is “a dangerous and unconstitutional retaliation by the president of the United States against their perceived political enemies.”
In his memorandum, Trump wrote that he had “determined that he is no longer of national interest” so that Zaid and others have access to classified information.
Zaid, according to his complaint, has represented the “complainants in each administration” who dates back to Bill Clinton, doing it “without taking into account the policy of the party”, and that the revocation of their authorization is now “undermining” their ability to completely represent its clients.
According to the complaint, Zaid has had access to classified information in some way for approximately three decades, since approximately 1995. His first authorization “fully approved”, according to the complaint, occurred in 2002 as part of the ongoing litigation. He was granted a “secret” authorization, which he maintained for years, until he increased during the first Trump administration to the secret/sensitive compartmentalized information (TS-SCI) as part of a case that managed for a DHS complainant. It was “read” for the last time of its security in 2024, although it was not completely processed until 2025.
“In summary, Mr. Zaid has been a lawyer in exercise for more than thirty years and during most of his professional career he has maintained authorized access to classified information,” says the complaint. “In fact, far from being a security risk, it has been established and has been recognized by legal and non -legal entities as a leader in the legal community and in the national security field specifically.”
The National Security Lawyer Mark Zaid is photographed at his home in the Washington Metro area, DC, July 20, 2016.
Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post through Getty Image
Zaid’s complaint says he has already suffered real world damage as a result of Trump memorandum after he was “blindly implemented” by several agencies. In one case, the complaint says that Zaid was notified in an email from the office of the director of the office of the inspector of National Intelligence that he had “denied access to the classified complaint of a client” because he no longer had a security authorization.
“In summary, Mr. Zaid currently represents multiple clients for those who now cannot access the relevant classified information as part of their effective and jealous representation,” says the complaint.
Zaid’s lawyers, including Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, say in the complaint that they suspect that Zaid “arrived at the radar of President Trump” when he represented a complainant in 2019 who filed a complaint about Trump’s phone call in 2019 against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which led to his first interest.
The complaint says that the revocation is a violation of the first and fifth amendments, and asks a judge to declare the unconstitutional presidential memorandum, block any additional implementation, terminates the revocation and “requires the defendants to carry out a name cleaning hearing.”
“No American must lose their livelihood, or be blocked as a lawyer to represent customers, because a president entails resentment to them or who represents,” Zaid said in a statement. “It’s not just about me. It’s about using security authorizations as political weapons.”
