Former troops are suing the U.S. government for lost pay and benefits due to the Biden administration’s military vaccine mandate, one of the lawyers who successfully brought down the Anthrax vaccine told Breitbart News.
Attorney Dale Saran, a retired Marine, and fellow attorneys Andy Meyer and Brandon Johnson are representing the former troops in three separate lawsuits they plan to turn into a class action lawsuit on behalf of all service members who were either kicked out or illegally ordered to stop drilling, resulting in loss of pay.
Saran said the amount is in the “billions.”
“It’s worth billions. That’s just flat-out. That’s what it is in backpay. It’s billions of dollars,” he said.
The lawsuits were filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which Saran said is a specialized court where illegal discharges are heard.
“The Court of Claims has been around since the Reconstruction Era. It’s a very old court and kind of a weird one. But in any event, you can go there if you’ve got a claim and say, ‘Hey, I was illegally discharged, or the military did something to impede my pay,’ or whatever. The Court of Claims is where you go,” Saran said.
Saran estimates there are 80,000 to 100,000 service members — both active-duty and reservists — who were impacted by the mandate. While more than 8,000 active-duty troops were kicked out, tens of thousands of reservists were told not to drill anymore or were moved to inactive status, he said.
FLASHBACK: Rep. Mike Johnson Proposes Plan to Fire DOD Chief if Vaccine Mandate Not Dropped
U.S. House Armed Services Committee / YouTube“They were basically [without] the benefit of any due process. No boards were held. They didn’t hold any administrative separation boards; they didn’t hold any hearings. They didn’t do any federal recognition boards; none of the administrative or judicial procedures were used. They just flat-out did it. And then…they got the Coast Guard to follow along, and they got a bunch of Coasties too,” Saran said.
One of the former Coasties suing for damages is Zach Loesch, whom President Joe Biden had called personally to thank for saving people’s lives during Hurricane Ian, as previously reported by Breitbart News. At the time, Loesch was two weeks away from being kicked out of the Coast Guard for not taking the vaccine.
Zach Loesch (Courtesy Zach Loesch)
Saran said the monetary damages were not only from lost backpay but also from repayment of enlistment bonuses. He explained, “Say you enlisted for five years, you got a bonus and $50,000…And then, now, they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna inject you with this.’ You’re like, ‘Yo, that’s experimental. Like, that’s not actually licensed. And the defense secretary’s order was we’d only have to take licensed vaccines — that says experimental.'”
Hd added, “And they throw you out. Now it’s like, ‘Well…now you didn’t fulfill your obligation; give us back the grant.'”
“We got a bunch of those clients, too, guys getting money taken back. So not only did they throw them out — unceremoniously [and] wrongfully — now they’re…without a job instantly, no separations pay, none of that. And instead, they’re standing out in the cold, and worse yet, here comes the government…here comes the debt collectors. Now you owe us money,” Saran added.
Saran said the Pentagon already has the money to award backpay for those who lost active-duty or drill time since that pay is factored into the Pentagon’s budget allocated by Congress annually.
“That’s money we’re saying was illegally kept,” Saran said. “That’s money that’s fundamentally — as far as I can tell — has been stolen by the DOD [Department of Defense].”
Saran reflected on his experience with the Anthrax vaccine and called it deja vu.
“I defended people who refused the Anthrax vaccine back in ’99 and 2000 when I was a young judge advocate,” he said. “I did some work on the lawsuit Doe v. Rumsfeld that shut down the anthrax vaccine. And so…here we are, second go around again, 15 years in, and we’re right back at the mass vaccination of unlicensed vaccines like the government didn’t learn last time. So, nothing new under the sun.”
The cases are Bassen v. USA, No. 23-211C, Botello v. USA, No. 23-174C, and Harkins v. USA, No. 23-1238C, in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
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