‘Feds For Medical Freedom’ Sue Biden Over Vaccine Mandate

In response to the rigid and dictatorial federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates imposed on public servants and government contractors, the national grassroots coalition, Feds For Medical Freedom (F4MF), filed a lawsuit on Dec. 21 against Joe Biden and key agency members of his administration, including heads of the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, Defense, Veterans Affairs, Justice, Homeland Security, Energy, State, and others.

Representing over 700 Border Patrol Agents, Pilots, Diplomats, Firefighters, Contractors, and other dedicated and patriotic Americans, the lawsuit seeks preliminary and permanent injunctive relief from the Defendants "enforcing or implementing the Federal Employee Mandate and the Contractor Mandate." Led by F4MF President and former Border patrol agent and pilot Marcus W. Thornton, the Feds For Medical Freedom website declares:

"Now is not the time to abandon well-established laws regarding workplace discrimination, informed consent to use unlicensed vaccines, and individualized assessments by employers.

Members of the Federal community work every day to ensure the nation's laws are applied fairly to all citizens. Now, they are fighting the government to ensure the law is applied fairly to all federal workers."

Following an existing complaint filed in October in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the 75-page document reminds that "until very recently," the Biden administration made clear that mandating vaccines is "not the role of the federal government." Regardless, Biden has maintained this is a "pandemic of the unvaccinated," and on Sept. 9, swiftly announced:

"Next, I will sign an executive order that will now require all executive branch federal employees to be vaccinated—all. And I've signed another executive order that will require federal contractors to do the same.

If you want to work with the federal government and do business with us, get vaccinated. If you want to do business with the federal government, vaccinate your workforce." 

The lawsuit points out that, after establishing EO 14043, requiring COVID-19 vaccination for all Federal employees, implementation guidance from the newly formed "Safer Federal Workforce Task Force" would be issued within seven days. Making accommodations for no one, the Task Force states, "employees who are on maximum telework or working remotely are not excused from this requirement." The lawsuit contends:

"All federal employees, regardless of whether the employee has antibodies from a prior infection of COVID, are required to receive the vaccination. The medical community agrees, however, that individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination." 

On Oct. 1, 2021, a memorandum from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published rules tracking Task Force guidance for current and future federal employees. The lawsuit insists the Task Force guidance and/or the OPM rules "extend far beyond the details stated expressly in EO 14043. For example, the suit asserts that not every Defendant agency has issued a formal document such as the OPM. Still, each agency has the same policy of mandating complete vaccination or the receipt of a religious or medical accommodation by Nov. 22 or face discipline and possible employment termination. With a conservative estimate of 330,000 unvaccinated federal employees, the case explains:

"The government cannot in good faith dispute that each Defendant agency has this policy."

Screenshot / F4MF

Besides federal employees, the vaccine requirement extends to contractors. EO 14042, specifically targeting federal contractors, is designed to ensure that all "contracts and contract-like instruments" comply with all guidance created for them by the Task Force. Issued on Sept. 24, 2021, the lawsuit explains the Task Force guidance for contractors "is as broad as possible." It defines "covered contractor employee" to mean "any full-time or part-time employee of a covered contractor working on or in connection with a covered contract or working at a covered contractor workplace." The suit describes:

"This includes employees of covered contractors who are not themselves working on or in connection with a covered contract."

With OMB rules and determinations being published without reasoning or explanation, the lawsuit notes the roughly 790,000 unvaccinated federal contractors (the number is most likely much higher because of sub-contractors covered by the mandate) affected by the draconian measure. In just this past fiscal year, the government awarded a record-breaking $145.7 billion in federal contract money specifically to small businesses. Focusing on the Contractor Mandate, the lawsuit states:

The Contractor Mandate is designed to, and in fact does, act naturally and predictably through the contracting entities to coerce them to vaccinate their employees who are considered covered contractors (who, in effect, are often the entire workforce of the contracting entity). Indeed, the Mandate would have almost no effect or purpose if it did not predictably cause contracting entities to force their unvaccinated workers to get vaccinated—or, alternatively, to terminate them for non-compliance that would prevent the entity from contracting with the federal government. Given that contracting entities often depend on the federal government for continued existence, there is no choice: the Contractor Mandate directly forces their workers to get vaccinated, or be fired. 

The claim, filed by attorney R. Trent McCotter at Boyden Gray & Associates, declares that Plaintiffs—many who face imminent harm—are direct targets of Joe Biden's mandates and are entitled to relief. Citing seven counts, the lawsuit explains in great detail its belief that Plaintiffs are entitled to a declaratory judgment that the Defendants have been and are violating the law. Plaintiffs respectfully request that the court: