The Air Force service members, stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue and McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, are being represented by Kris Kobach, a candidate for Kansas attorney general, and attorneys from the America First Policy Institute.
BELLEVUE, Neb. - Three dozen active-duty airmen filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Air Force service members,According to a news release from the Alliance for Free Citizens, the 36 airmen applied for religious exemptions but were rejected.
Filed in the U.S. District Court of Omaha, it is “the largest lawsuit filed to date against the recently proposed medical mandates on the U.S. Armed Forces,” the release stated. The airmen, stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue and McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, are being represented by Kris Kobach, a candidate for Kansas attorney general, and attorneys from the America First Policy Institute, a conservative thinktank run by former Trump administration officials. Kobach formerly headed a Trump commission to investigate his allegations of voter fraud in 2016.
“No member of the military should have to choose between following his or her religious convictions and continuing to serve the country they love. It’s a travesty when the very men and women who defend our Constitution from external threats are seeing their own constitutional liberties trampled,” Kobach said in the release.“American taxpayers have invested roughly $5.5 million to train each of them.
The vaccine mandate for military personnel was put in place in August, with a deadline of Sept. 15. In December, the Air Force announced it had discharged 27 people for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.