President Donald Trump is heavily focused on dismantling what he regards as a so-called “deep state” of government agencies that work for their own partisan agendas. This concern is especially important when it comes to the intelligence and security agencies, where if malfeasance occurs, it undermines our democratic society.
However, if Trump wants to take on the deep state, why is he taking one of its most successful challengers off the field? Namely, Mark Zaid. A longtime national security attorney based in Washington, Zaid has held a high-level Top Secret-SCI government security clearance for more than 20 years. This clearance has allowed Zaid to represent members of the intelligence community whose concerns relate to highly classified information.
Trump revoked Zaid’s clearance last week. The president’s apparent motive for the revocation is Zaid’s role in representing a whistleblower who alleged that Trump improperly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a phone call between the two leaders during Trump’s first term in office.
If so, this is a silly rationale for revocation. Zaid is an attorney. His job is to represent clients whether or not he shares their political views. And Zaid is hardly an anti-Trump agitator. He has previously represented numerous Trump administration or aligned officials. Zaid previously worked closely with former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) in relation to the Benghazi terrorist attack investigation. John Solomon reported that Zaid was the first attorney to represent a key IRS whistleblower who alleged misconduct in the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden for tax fraud. Does that sound like the work of a deep state Democratic partisan to you?
Zaid told the Washington Examiner why he believes Trump made a misjudgment here.
“In reality,” he said, “this decision hurts his administration more than it does me because it will preclude my ability to represent his own people, as I did during his first administration, who face employment and security concerns, as well as defending them in investigations.”
Zaid’s clearance revocation will also perversely help both Biden administration officials and Russia. Zaid represented numerous former and active intelligence officers in relation to the so-called “Havana Syndrome” or “Anomalous Health Incidents” concern. The Biden administration facilitated the intelligence community’s cover-up of Russia’s responsibility for causing many Havana Syndrome incidents.
Zaid observed, “This action truly hurts my AHI clients. I was regularly bringing AHI whistleblowers to [the Congressional intelligence oversight committees] for classified interviews and giving them protection because of my clearance. That was to show the Biden administration was covering up the truth. And I was doing it pro bono.”
Trump has some legitimate concerns over politicization within the deep state. However, if he wants to take on deep state malfeasance, the very worst thing he could do is remove the security clearance of lawyers such as Zaid. That path helps only those who are interested in cover-ups and setting their own agendas outside of effective oversight.
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After all, the government imposes strict conditions on how whistleblowers are supposed to disclose their concerns. If a whistleblower breaks these conditions, they will likely quickly find themselves facing a visit from the FBI. Even if prosecution and prison time don’t follow, suspension of a security clearance and dismissal are likely. For individuals who have spent their careers in the shadows and who have yet to put their children through college, this concern means that staying quiet about a deep state problem is often personally preferable to speaking out about it. Individuals such as Zaid are thus crucial in supporting democratic transparency by shielding those who want the truth to set Americans free.
Put another way, Trump is further flooding the swamp rather than draining it with this decision. The president should reconsider.
