CHARLESTON, S.C. — South Carolina Republican congressional candidate Katie Arrington wants the Department of Defense to hand over all public records that discuss the suspension of her security clearance so that she can "expose the misconduct and inappropriate actions" taken by the federal agency where she previously worked.
Arrington filed a lawsuit Tuesday demanding the release of these documents in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit is separate from a since-settled lawsuit Arrington filed last fall against the federal government.
Like the previous lawsuit, the new complaint continues to claim "there was no reason for DoD to suspend Arrington's Top Secret security clearance."
Questions surrounding Arrington's final months at the Pentagon have come up repeatedly on the campaign trail ever since the former state lawmaker entered South Carolina's 1st Congressional District race, where she is challenging U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Daniel Island, for her Lowcountry U.S. House seat.
Arrington was placed on leave from the department in May 2021, following allegations that she disclosed classified information. The day after Arrington resigned from her senior role at the Department of Defense in late February, she announced she was running for Charleston's seat in congress.
In a series of tweets about the latest lawsuit, Arrington's attorney Mark Zaid said the complaint will force the U.S. government to reveal documents that show "what led to its decisions & what we viewed as frivolous (even political in nature) security clearance action."
"It will presumably reveal that the decision was baseless, and that there was no violation other than, at worst, an inadvertent one, which happens all the time," Zaid said in an interview Tuesday evening with The State newspaper.
Zaid also said the withdrawal of Arrington's security clearance was not consistent with the way the Department of Defense has handled similar matters in the past. After filing the first lawsuit on Arrington's behalf in October, Zaid said the Department of Defense then issued its statement of reasons as to why Arrington's clearance was withdrawn.
"And it was probably the worst statement of reasons I have read from the DoD in over 20 years," Zaid said, in explaining why his client wants these records.
Before being placed on administrative leave, Arrington was the chief information security officer for the Pentagon's Acquisition and Sustainment Office. In that role, one of her most ambitious initiatives was spearheading a cybersecurity initiative for defense contractors, known as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.
"The NSA's action to allege Arrington committed any type of security violation was baseless and/or exaggerated and normally would not serve as the grounds to immediately suspend an individual's clearance access. The decision was designed to interfere with the cyber security activities that Arrington was running through DoD, which NSA did not support," the complaint claims. "Nor did certain high-ranking DoD officials want Arrington serving in a senior position within the Biden Administration due to her close previous ties with President Trump and they used NSA's decision as a pretext to remove her."
Zaid confirmed this latest lawsuit is a public fact-finding mission for Arrington, who claims she has not gotten a satisfactory or timely answer from the government about why she lost her security clearance.
The lawsuit said Arrington filed Freedom of Information Act/Privacy requests, or FOIPAs, with five federal agencies regarding her alleged security violations but has yet to hear back. The federal agencies are the National Security Agency, the Office of Inspector General, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, the Consolidated Adjudications Facility and the Department of Air Force's Office of Special Investigations.
Arrington's campaign did not immediately return a request for comment about the lawsuit. On Twitter, Arrington shared two tweets sent by her attorney. One announced the filing of the lawsuit, and in the other Zaid said Arrington was not fired from the Department of Defense, did not have her security clearance revoked and did not leak classified information.
"Anyone who claims otherwise is either misinformed, ignorant or intentionally lying," Zaid wrote.
Arrington has accused Mace of doing just that.
During a Berkeley County Republican Party candidate forum Saturday, Arrington took aim at Mace for her comments about this matter.
"My opponent likes to lie about me and say that I got fired and I lost my clearance. That's not true. I actually won the exceptional civilian employee of the year for the Department of Defense," Arrington said. "I've actually had more time up on the Hill working in Washington than Ms. Mace."
At the same candidate forum, Mace doubled down on the issue.
"I can be trusted with our nation's secrets. I've never had my top secret security clearance revoked like my opponent. The military said that she put our our U.S. national secrets in grave danger," Mace said.
Arrington's departure from the Pentagon is also the subject of a website created by the Mace campaign that calls Arrington "crooked" and features an out-of-context, looped clip of former President Donald Trump at a Cincinnati campaign rally, where the crowd begins chanting, "Lock her up!"
While Zaid said he is staying out of the politics of the lawsuit, he also said it is up to Arrington as to whether she wants to use it for her political race.
Arrington is one of two Republicans challenging Mace for her seat in Congress. Lynz Piper-Loomis, an advocate for military veterans, is also running for the GOP nomination.
Whoever wins the June 14 Republican primary will face Democrat Annie Andrews in the November general election.
And whoever is elected to represent South Carolina's 1st Congressional District in Washington will be entitled to access classified information by virtue of the constitutional offices they hold.
