Left: President Donald Trump delivers remarks while meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office at the White House on Wednesday, May 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci). Right: Attorney Mark Zaid discusses an unfair competition lawsuit involving President Donald Trump on March 9, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images).
Renowned national security lawyer Mark Zaid has submitted an initial legal motion seeking to reinstate his security clearance, which was withdrawn by the Trump administration.
In late March, President Donald Trump revoked the security clearance of Zaid, along with several other prominent attorneys, politicians, and officials. Zaid initiated legal action against the Trump administration in early May regarding this action, claiming that the president’s executive order constituted “dangerous, unconstitutional retaliation.”
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Roughly two weeks later, Zaid is seeking to speed up the process for the reinstatement of his privileges.
“Mr. Zaid also requests a hearing on his application for a preliminary injunction no later than 21 days after this filing,” his attorneys wrote in the Wednesday filing. Zaid is being represented by several notable attorneys, including Abbe Lowell, known for previously representing Jared Kushner and Hunter Biden.
“We say enough of Trump taking away security clearances out of retaliation & with no basis,” attorney Norman Eisen added on social media, along with a photo of the motion.
Wednesday’s filing noted that Zaid’s legal counsel attempted to speak with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice’s Federal Programs Branch, but to no avail. Included with the motion was a declaration from Zaid, in which he reiterated the harm the revocation has done to him; a declaration from a client of Zaid’s, who said Zaid’s “authorized access to classified information was a significant factor” in the decision to retain him; and a report from a former Defense Department official, stating that the revocation of Zaid’s security clearance was done “without due process.”
Zaid attracted the fury of Trump during the president’s first term, when Zaid was revealed to be representing a major whistleblower in the Ukraine phone call scandal that led to the president’s first impeachment.
“[I]t was not until the 2019 [intelligence community] Whistleblower matter that Mr. Zaid apparently came onto President Trump’s radar, immediately sparking his ire and that of his loyalists both inside and outside the government,” Zaid’s May lawsuit states.
“In the aftermath of Mr. Zaid’s role as legal counsel becoming public, President Trump called him a ‘sleazeball,”” the lawsuit added, referring to comments from Trump at a televised political rally in Louisiana in November 2019. “Days after the Louisiana rally, President Trump spoke to reporters at the White House about the impeachment witness: ‘The whistleblower, because of that, should be revealed. And his lawyer, who said the worst things possibly two years ago, he should be sued and maybe for treason. Maybe for treason, but he should be sued. His lawyer is a disgrace.’”
The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Joe Biden appointee.
