A lawyer who represented a government whistleblower in a case that led to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment sued the Trump administration on Monday for ‘unconstitutional retaliation’ after his security clearance was revoked.

Lawyer Mark Zaid argued that the administration’s decision to pull his clearance in March was in retaliation for representing former Department of Homeland Security intelligence chief Brian Murphy, who was key to Trump’s 2019 impeachment.

Murphy filed a whistleblower complaint in 2019 alleging Trump, amid his re-election campaign, pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy 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, but he was later acquitted by the Senate.

Zaid’s lawsuit, 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 cites 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.’

Trump has also revoked clearances of several other political foes, including former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his own former national security advisor John Bolton, as well as attorneys at other law firms.

Zaid urged the court to rule that Trump’s revocation decision was unconstitutional and reinstate his clearance. He has had access to classified information since 1995 and a security clearance since 2002.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump unveiled a budget blueprint last week that includes roughly $6 billion in federal funding cuts to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). 

Despite the multibillion-dollar slash, a senior official at the space agency told Fox New Digital that the reduction in funding is actually beneficial for efficiency and exploration.

‘The reductions in the President’s blueprint budget counterintuitively represent an opportunity to truly innovate in how we conduct our space missions,’ senior NASA official Ryan Whitley told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. 

‘Now is the time to reduce the bureaucracy at NASA and turn our attention to the execution of bold new human missions to the Moon and Mars.’

The proposed plan would cut roughly 24% of NASA’s entire budget, and could phase out some major projects like the Artemis moon program. Artemis, which was conceptualized by Trump in his first term, was designed to push the U.S. to return to moon exploration and came after President Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program in 2011.

The original timeline of the Artemis program included a mission to land astronauts on the moon by 2024 via the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, but technical challenges have delayed the undertaking several years, and it is now set for at least September 2026 should the program survive the cuts. 

While funding reduction threatens some existing programs, the White House touted new investments that would bolster the agency in an effort to beat Chinese space innovations.  

‘By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, it ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient,’ the White House topline preview reads. ‘To achieve these objectives, the Budget would streamline the NASA workforce, IT services, NASA Center operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities.’

Aligning with the Trump administration’s movement to improve government efficiency, the White House clarified that the budget ‘refocuses [NASA] funding on beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars.’

With a heavy reduction in federal funding, it is most likely that outside contractors and companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX will most likely play a bigger role in launching rockets and exploring space.

SpaceX has conducted 479 launches thus far, and Blue Origin has conducted 31.

As the current head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though he has announced his intention of leaving the agency to focus more on Tesla and his other ventures, Musk clarified he had no involvement in NASA budget discussions in a post on X last month.

The budget blueprint and the funding changes to NASA still have to make their way through the legislative process, but the U.S. space agency has stood fast in its position that the current proposal will bolster innovation and exploration.

‘We have accomplished the impossible time and time again, but even the best organizations need to take a hard look in the mirror,’ Whitley told Fox News Digital.

‘For the past 25 years, NASA has had access to billions of dollars to advance human exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit. Despite that, in all that time, the United States has only successfully conducted one—uncrewed—test flight around the Moon,’ he said. ‘We know we are capable of accomplishing much more.’

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news. Story tips can be sent to Preston.Mizell@fox.com and on X @MizellPreston

A new study exposing a significant number of ‘serious adverse events’ occurring among women who have taken mifepristone, also known as the ‘abortion pill,’ has sparked an outcry from the pro-life community, including experts who spoke to Fox News Digital about what the study means for women in the United States. 

‘The biggest thing that will shock most readers of this report is just how different the findings in this study are from what the FDA claims on the abortion drug label,’ Katie Glenn Daniel, SBA Pro Life America director of legal affairs, told Fox News Digital about the recently released study. 

‘What they found is that more than one in ten women will go to the emergency room seeking follow-up care after taking the abortion drugs. The FDA claims that’s more like one in 20 women, which is still concerning, right? If you’ve got a one in twenty chance of something happening, you might take that seriously, but one in 10. It is shocking,’ she continued. ‘This means hundreds of thousands of American women have gone to the hospital for complications from abortions through these abortion drugs and the FDA was not collecting information about those situations. So this study shines a light on what has been happening, what ER doctors certainly know is happening. But what our public health institutions have turned a blind eye to.’

Mifepristone is a ‘pregnancy blocker’ that is used in combination with another medication, misoprostol, to terminate pregnancies, according to Mayo Clinic. It is also used to manage early miscarriages, as it helps prepare the body to empty the uterus.

Research by the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., has revealed that the rate of serious side effects is 22 times higher than what is indicated on the FDA-approved drug label.

After going through an abortion assisted by mifepristone, nearly 11% of women — more than one in 10 — reported experiencing ‘infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious or life-threatening adverse event,’ according to the study summary.

‘These reports, which analyzed the largest known data set of real-world mifepristone use, confirm what physicians like me and our members are seeing in our clinical practice: that abortion drugs pose significant dangers to women,’ Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB/GYN, told Fox News Digital. 

‘I have had patients face life-threatening hemorrhage, infection, and more after taking these drugs, which are now available to order online without an in-person physician visit to confirm the age of the pregnancy and rule out risk factors. The fact that these data show a serious complication rate that is 22 times higher than what the FDA states reveals the urgent need for further investigation into complications of drug-induced abortions and for policymakers and agencies to reprioritize women’s safety over the interests of the abortion industry. Women and their children deserve better care than these dangerous drugs.’

Mifepristone, which the Biden administration took steps to ensure was made available to women through the mail, is the most well-known abortion pill in the United States, and approximately 63% of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023 were medication abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 

This was an increase from 53% in 2020.

We knew that the Biden administration’s changes to the abortion drug prescribing, which included allowing these drugs to be sent through to mail. We knew that that was harmful for women and girls because there is no medical oversight,’ Daniel told Fox News Digital. ‘You don’t even know if a pregnant woman’s getting these drugs. There have been cases where men order these drugs, to slip them to somebody. The state of Louisiana has a case right now where a mother ordered them and forced her daughter to take them, even though the pregnancy was wanted. So you really lose a lot of the safeguards that are in place when somebody actually physically goes to a doctor’s office.’

Daniel told Fox News Digital she hopes this report will encourage the Trump administration’s FDA to take action to ensure that women and unborn children are protected. 

A drug that puts one in ten women in the hospital is certainly not a drug that is quote unquote good for women or caring for women and I think we need to be realistic about that,’ Daniel said. 

Daniel also explained that the true harm from the pill is likely even worse than the study only includes certain years and only women who used insurance.

‘So there are tons of women, including those who are the most vulnerable, who are left out of this data,’ Daniel pointed out. 

‘There is a lot more to look out here,’ Daniel continued. ‘We see this as the starting point of what the FDA, the CDC, our public health institutions, and our physicians need to be looking at. And we need to have an honest conversation about the fact that 20 years of data shows that these drugs are deadly for children, but they’re also very dangerous for in girls.’

Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report

Friedrich Merz, the conservative leader who was poised to become Germany’s next chancellor, failed to win enough votes to secure the country’s top position.

This leaves German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in power even though he had already delivered a farewell address. Merz’s loss marks a historic moment, as it is the first of its kind in post-war Germany.

The result came as a major upset, as Merz was widely expected to win, thanks to a coalition deal involving his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU); its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU); and the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

In February, Merz led his party to a federal election victory and later signed the deal that many assumed would secure him the votes needed to become chancellor. However, on Tuesday, Merz received 310 votes—falling short by six—as at least 18 Members of the German Parliament in the coalition did not back him, according to Reuters.

To secure the position of chancellor, Merz would have needed to win 316 out of 630 in the Bundestag. The coalition of CSU/CDU and SPD has 328 seats, more than enough to secure a majority victory. However, Merz received 310 votes, while 307 members voted against him and nine others abstained.

Despite his unexpected loss, Merz is not out of luck. The Bundestag now has 14 days to elect the next chancellor, and Merz still has a chance of winning the position. Germany’s socialist Left Party, however, is pushing to hold another round of chancellor elections as soon as Wednesday, according to Germany-based news outlet DW.

Merz had already lined up victory trips to France and Poland on Wednesday, Reuters reported, though it is unclear whether he will proceed with the visits as planned following the defeat.

A resurfaced clip of Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a member of the progressive ‘Squad’ in Congress, sparked a frenzy on social media this week with conservatives blasting the congresswoman over her comments regarding the ‘radicalization of White men.’

‘I would say our country should be more fearful of White men across our country, because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country,’ Omar said in a 2018 interview with Al-Jazeera while discussing the domestic terrorism threats in the United States and responding to a question on how much concern ‘jihadism’ poses to the United States. 

 ‘And so if fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe, Americans safe inside of this country, we should be profiling, monitoring, and creating policies to fight the radicalization of White men.’

The clip, posted by conservative influencer accounts including Laura Loomer and LibsofTikTok with millions of impressions, sparked outrage from conservatives on social media, including from inside the White House. 

‘This isn’t just sick; it’s actually genocidal language,’ Vice President JD Vance posted on X. ‘What a disgrace this person is.’

‘This is blatant racism,’ GOP Sen. Mike Lee posted on X. ‘Who condemns it?’

‘@ilhanMN never ceases to be an embarrassment for Minnesota,’ GOP Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, posted on X. 

‘There’s never been a more anti-American member of Congress than Ilhan Omar,’ conservative influencer Paul Szypula posted on X. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Omar’s office for comment. 

The social media firestorm comes shortly after Omar sparked controversy for telling Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Myles Morell to ‘f— off’ after he asked her a question about fellow Democratic Party figures traveling to El Salvador to defend illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to the country by the Trump administration.

Omar later responded to the clip being shared on X, stating, ‘I said what I said. You and all your miserable trolls can f— off.’