By HFDF Team
May 31, 2022
HFDF Won Case Invalidating Mask Mandate in U.S. District Court
Leslie Manookian, Founder and President of Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF), the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging the federal travel mask mandate, Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc., et al, v. Joseph R. Biden, et al, Case No. 8:21-cv-1693 (M.D. Fla.), issued the following statement on the Biden Administration’s decision to appeal the District Court’s order:
It is disappointing – but hardly surprising – that the Biden Administration has taken the decision to appeal its loss of the travel mask mandate, demonstrating that this case has always been about the expansion of government power over American lives, not about substantive legal authority or sound science surrounding masks.
We sued the CDC over the travel mask mandate because its assertion of the power to compel travelers to wear face coverings was based on politics and paper-thin rhetoric, not on existing law. In fact, it used a specious assertion of a ‘public health emergency’ to implement the mandate in record time, bypassing the requirement for public comment. It cited no sound scientific justification for the order. In fact, CDC’s own research demonstrated the infectiveness of masks in the public setting. It somehow discovered the ‘emergency’ more than a year into a pandemic, only after the political winds had shifted and a new President had taken office.
In response to substantive questions about its legal authority and the overall efficacy of the mask mandate, the CDC has mustered the equivalent response of a frustrated parent: ‘Because we said so.’ The law demands more, and the American people deserve more.
The Biden Administration is so desperate to hold onto this illegal executive authority that it is willing to force Americans back into masks when they travel – despite the vast majority of travelers choosing to forego masks.
We are confident that the Court of Appeals will concur that the travel mask mandate lacked statutory authority and sound science, and should be invalidated.
ABOUT HFDF AND LESLIE MANOOKIAN
Leslie Manookian is president and founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund, a nonprofit which seeks to rectify health injustice through education, advocacy, and legal challenges to unjust mandates, laws, and policies that undermine our health freedoms and human rights
NOTE: LESLIE MANOOKIAN IS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS. PLEASE CALL: (208) 274-5971 OR EMAIL: info@healthfreedomdefense.org.
