Jim White welcomes the founder and president of Health Freedom Defense Fund, Leslie Manookian, and lead counsel for the CDC Travel Mask Mandate case, attorney Brant Hadaway – Live on Critical Disclosure Radio, hosted by Brighteon Radio.
You can read the conversation between Jim, Leslie, and Brant below.
Intro: Discerning truth in a sea of lies, live from Kalispell, Montana. It’s Critical Disclosure radio with your host Jim White.
Jim: Okay I’m your host James White and this is Critical Disclosure radio. Thanks for much for joining here today on this 27th day of April 2022 can’t believe it’s already 27th of April, the time and this years went by so fast. Been one of the less crazy years than we’ve had the last out of the last three. So we’re happy for that. And some great things are happening here. In the march towards taking our freedom back from the tyrants that want to rule over us. And, that’s what the topic of today’s show is.
We have a Leslie Manookian here with us, who’s the founder of Health Freedom Defense Fund, healthfreedomdefense.org. And I think is Brant going to be joining us do you think, Leslie? Let me take you off mute. Hold on. Let me take you off mute. Sorry.
Leslie: Can you hear me? Yeah, I thought he was going to, I just sent him a text just to remind him, but I think he’ll be joining us shortly if that’s okay.
Jim: Oh yeah, of course. No, of course, no problem at all. Let me give you a proper introduction, nonetheless. And, we can just go ahead and move forward. And if he comes by we’ll invite him into the show. Joining me is Leslie Manookian the 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. She was a former successful at wall street and business executive and award-winning documentary filmmaker and qualified homeopath. Thanks so much for joining us today on the broadcast Leslie.
Leslie: Hey, it’s so great to be here with you today thank you.
Jim: You’re welcome. Documentary filmmaker yeah, I’ve actually, produced a couple of mini-documentaries and helped on another, documentary film here about living off-grid out here in Montana. I really, really enjoy it, it’s great stuff. I wish I had more time and certainly like anything else, more resources to be able to do documentaries, but I think that’s a, that’s a great way artistically to get the truth across, you know what I mean? People like articles, people like quick videos, but you know, I’m a documentary guy, so I love documentaries. And, maybe one time we could talk about that. I know that’s not why we’re here today, but, again, thanks for being here.
All right. So we’re going to just go ahead and let’s just start from the beginning. I know that you and your group, and of course, with, Mr. Hadaway, who was the lead counsel, you guys, got the mask mandate, I believe overturned on the airlines. And go ahead and just give us a little bit of background and tell us about that and how that all transpired. You know, we’ve all been fighting, we applaud you because you know myself, I don’t necessarily do the legal stuff, but I do the media stuff and they’re all kind of fighting on different fronts. And it’s a great victory, to have you have that success. So it looks like a Brant is joining us here now. So I’ll admit him on to the broadcast. And, we’ll welcome him and give him a proper introduction. And then maybe we can bump over to that question I just asked you, if that’s okay, Leslie.
Leslie:Yeah, I can start on that. Well, actually, why don’t we wait until he’s in and then we can introduce him and join.
Jim:You got it sounds good, but that’s a great victory and anybody that’s in I guess, in the Patriot community or the Patriot movement or Jesus any red-blooded freedom, loving American, are thankful to you and your efforts and efforts of your group. We are not these people’s property. That’s what I don’t-
Hey, Brett, how you doing there? Okay. Let me- let’s see here. Okay. So I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you at all. So let me bring up- okay, Brant go ahead and unmute your microphone.
Brant: Sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with my settings here. Let me see if I can fix this.
Jim: Okay. Very good.
Leslie: While you do that, Brant let me just tell you a little bit about the genesis of it all, if that’s okay.
Jim: Yeah, sure. And then what we’ll do is when he gets everything straightened out, we’ll give him a proper introduction.
Leslie: That’d be wonderful.
Jim: Sure.
Leslie: He’s a hero. He should be a hero to every American.
Jim: Right on it’s all good.
Leslie: So, let me go back if I can a little bit, and just tell you about what got me into the health freedom movement, which is that I suffered my own medical injury 30 years ago and had no idea what was going on with me. But when I got pregnant with my first child, I was actually in homeopathy college. And I, heard on the first day during orientation that there were issues with vaccinations and I had no clue about that. Up until that point, I had believed that they were the greatest invention of mankind and that there was no downside.
And once I started reading some books, I was just overwhelmed and stunned by what I was learning, which is that there was very serious documentary evidence in the medical literature and the media about injuries to children, babies, and adults ranging from things like, rheumatoid arthritis and allergies to seizures and, other autoimmune conditions and death even. And I was stunned and during the making of my movie, The Greater Good, which you can see at greatergoodmovie.org. I met with a woman whose son had autism and, had developed autism after his shots. And she told me that she had gotten- she had all sorts of injuries and reactions from travel vaccines that she had received.
Well, when I was 28 and had just graduated from business school, I went and got every travel vaccine they would give me, before I went to Southeast Asia for two months with a bunch of girlfriends from business school before we were all starting our big jobs in New York City. And I was going to Wall Street at Goldman Sachs and I didn’t connect the dots, but I had gotten sick ever since then. And my health had just deteriorated and I kept going to doctors and doctors and they kept telling me, oh, we can’t find anything. And finally, my mainstream doctor said, I know you’re sick. You know, you’re sick, but I can’t help you mainstream medicine can’t help you. I think you should see a homeopath. This was a doctor in London. And then I went and got into homeopathy and started learning about it. And actually it was just profound, the impact that it had on me. And that was the genesis and the impetus behind making The Greater Good. Then trying to raise money for The Greater Good I was really stunned because I’d been a lifelong Democrat at that point. A lifelong- I mean, I used to quip that I was the only socialist on wall street. I really was. I believe that the only problem with the world was that I, and everybody else didn’t pay enough taxes and that government didn’t have enough funding, which is pretty humorous given that I now am railing against government abuse, but that’s where I came from. And what ended up happening was that raising money to make the film was just a life lesson, because nobody on the left wanted to listen to us talk about government corruption, malfeasance, agency capture, or anything like that. And people on the right were like, well, of course the governments of corrupt, of course they’re lying. Of course. You know, they had no problem with it. And so we raised almost no money from liberals and those were the people that I thought were my peeps. So it was a major, major, learning experience for me. And then when we got to 2020, and things started to unfold, I already had almost, I had already had more than two decades of research under my belt and knew, or had a pretty good inkling where we were headed by early January.
I was telling my husband that China was locking down to show us how to do it. And it was coming to the west. And then of course, everything unfolded and I started Health Freedom Defense Fund, which you can find at healthfreedomdefense.org because I wanted to push back at what I believed was on its way.
Jim: Excellent. I applaud your efforts. Most people don’t really do anything. Most people just complain and most people expect someone else to kind of ride in and solve all the issues for them. So I applaud you for stepping up and forming your organization and getting some great results. And we’re also joined by Brant Hadaway who’s the lead counsel for the CDC travel mask case. Let me give a Brant a proper introduction. Brant Hadaway I hope I get your law firm, right, Brant I’m going to give it a whirl here. Brant Hadaway is a Miami lawyer who is board certified in international litigation and arbitration. He joined the Davillier law group and Health Freedom Defense Fund in early 2021 at the invitation of the valued partner, George Wentz, to help fight the COVID tyranny. He is the lead counsel for plaintiffs in the CDC travel mask case. Brant, thanks so much for joining us here today. I hope I didn’t butcher your law group too badly.
Brant: It’s a pleasure. Thank you. It’s we pronounce it Dava-lear.
Jim: Very good. I’ll hope I remember that for the rest of the show.
Leslie: Don’t worry everybody does it, it took me a long time.
Brant: When I, when I first met the managing partner, Daniel Daviller, I pronounced it daVillea I thought I was so sophisticated.
Leslie: Me too and because he lives in New Orleans, I thought it was davillea as well.
Jim: Well, regardless of the name, the important part is, is you’re kicking some, you know what, some tail there, when it comes to getting people’s freedoms back. And, I kind of do the same thing as I was talking to Leslie about before, you know, everybody’s got a different sort of avenue that they’re doing.
I’m sort of a radio guy and I try to wake people up, I guess you could say, and put news and information out there and report truth. And you do more, the legal thing and it’s all-important. I think we are all working towards the same goal and we just appreciate so much that you- the work that you’ve done and tell us if you can, a little bit about the case, I mean this- it’s a nationwide case. The no doubt about it. I don’t know if other places are around the world I think they’re still kind of cracking down a little bit, but at least here in the United States, tell us, give us, some of the background on that and how that kind of all came about.
Brant: Well, let’s see how far back you want to go. When the CDC instituted this mask mandate, we were already one year into the pandemic and it was done on the orders of President Biden. He issued an executive order directing, TSA, CDC, and FAA to implement regulations requiring masks on travel conveyances. Now you will recall that Biden had made a campaign promise to implement, some sort of nationwide mask mandate when he became president. And there was some debate over whether that would be constitutional. And meanwhile, the CDC existed for a year prior to Biden entering office. I mean for the year during the COVID pandemic, CDC has been in existence for a long time, obviously. And I just saw a comment by a former CDC director, Robert Redfield today that they considered a travel mask mandate at CDC during the Trump administration, but concluded that they did not have the statutory authority to do so. And that was very interesting because CDC was very active. Under the Trump administration and it instituted this rental eviction moratorium, and it instituted a conditional sail order, that basically shut down the cruise industry.
And yet it didn’t Institute a travel mask mandate. And so the notion that this mask mandate was about science is absolutely nonsense. It was very political, highly politicized, effort and it was after the mandate was implemented, that cases started percolating up through the courts on the eviction moratorium, as well as the cruise line matter, in which the courts were consistently saying that look the statute, you relied on CDC as much narrower in scope than what you say it is.
And, with the benefit of some of those decisions. And before the Supreme Court had issued its ruling in the eviction moratorium, we filed this lawsuit back in July of 2021. And we agreed with the government to, basically proceed on a basis of cross-motions for summary judgment on what’s called the administrative record, meaning CDC, the government filed the record of studies and whatnot that the CDC had relied on and instituting the mandate and proceeded from there.
And the judge, of course she ruled on April 18th after all the briefs had been submitted. And we were obviously very pleased with the ruling.
Jim: You know, let’s talk about the bigger issue if we can. I think what’s kind of lost in all this minutia is the fact that I didn’t get a chance to vote for anybody in the CDC, I’m not their property. They can’t tell me what to do. I don’t have a contract with them. They’re a surface corporation. I don’t have a contract with their service corporation. They have no standing over me or any jurisdiction over me. Why don’t people instead of battling these scoundrels that are trying to take away our rights. Why don’t we just point out the fact that, I mean, they don’t have any more power than the McDonald’s manager does to tell me what to do. I mean, in my view, how come that’s lost and all that. That should be front and center telling people they don’t have the authority at all to tell me what to do or you or anybody else. Any thoughts on that?
Brant: Well, it’s an interesting discussion because obviously the, the United States as a sovereign….
Jim: Yeah, you breaking up. You’re breaking a badly. You’d almost have to start that over. Brant you’re breaking up.
Brant: Sorry, I don’t know.
Jim: Can you hear him Leslie, are you hearing him okay?
Leslie: I can’t hear him well, and I haven’t heard him well, since he started the sound has not been great, frankly. Why don’t I jump in there- that, essentially, our declaration of independence says that our rights come from our creator. And that is something that is a, an ideal, a concept that no other nation is built upon and it’s a really revolutionary idea and I think it’s super important. And then we also have to remember that the constitution and the bill of rights are not a restraint on us as individuals or a comprehensive delineation of our rights.
Rather, they are a constraint on government, on government power. And what’s happened is in the years since the founding of our nation. Where we had three equal branches of government, right? The executive, the legislative and the judiciary, right? Those three branches of government, the judicial branch, obviously the courts, Congress is legislative branch and the president is the executive branch, but so are all of the federal agencies. They are under the executive branch and we have developed this system of government over a period of decades, which has actually accorded extraordinary powers to that administrative branch. And Congress has done that I think only because a lot of Americans have taken their eye off the ball, but what’s happened is this is really in violation of the original, ideas of our country, right? And so now we have these unelected unaccountable bureaucrats who do seem to pretend or think that they own us in some way and are dictating how we behave. Now, it’s important to understand that the way that our system is structured, the administrative branch can issue rules with which have the full force and effect of the law. I don’t think that’s right. I disagree with it, but it needs a legislative change by Congress in order to, hem that in. The problem is in this case, is that CDC didn’t even follow those administrative procedures that they are supposed to follow as a federal agency. So I’ll just say that and maybe Brant can jump in with more. Let’s see how his sound is.
Brant: Is this any better can you hear me now?
Jim: Yes.
Brant: Good. I’m sorry about that.
Jim: No problem.
Brant: This is really a debate about the strength and power of the administrative state that really goes back to the Roosevelt administration, which really was at the time of the founding of the modern administrative state. And, you know, the issue is with government, the sizes of that, of the United States. To what extent does Congress have to, micromanage, the way it legislates and to what extent or to what extent can Congress basically lay out general principles and delegate authority to agencies to interpret the scope of what Congress has delegated.
And there’s a wide scope of opinion on that. And one of the issues- the sub-issues in there is to what extent, should of course, defer to agency interpretations of their own statutory authority. And that’s a doctrine called Chevron Governance, and there’s a very active debate within the courts and among some of the current members of the Supreme Court, about whether Chevron Governance doctrine should be curtailed.
Now the history of the CDC is rooted in the history of the federal government’s role in public health. And it traditionally played a support role to the states and in enforcing, quarantine, ports of entry to the United States. If there was a state making adequate efforts, the surgeon general of the Navy could come in and bolster those efforts, but it was traditionally a support role. The CDC has never before claimed such a broad sweeping authority to regulate the actions of activity of every single person who travels, whether interstate or into the US, and so this presented a clear case of overreaching in terms of what its delegated authority was. And we also made the argument that if the authority was as broad as the CDC claimed, then that would be an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority under something called the non delegation doctrine.
Leslie: There’s another piece I’d like to mention, which is that everybody knows that CDC creates and manages a childhood recommended vaccination schedule it’s recommended however, and this is a really important fact to understand because originally the health powers where -are… the health powers are part of the police powers and they are reserved to the states. That was the vision of our founding fathers.
And CDC has never been able to issue a nationwide vaccine mandate for anything, for any child, for any student, for anybody because it’s recognized that they can only make recommendations and then it’s up to state legislatures to adopt those recommendations if they deem fit. And I think that’s an important illustration of what has hitherto been a clear delineation of the power and authority of the CDC.
Jim: Did you happen to reach out to any of our so-called leaders in Congress when you were trying to get this, this whole thing overturned, did you have support from any of the representatives, any of the congressmen than any of the representatives in DC on this?
Leslie: We’ve heard from certain legislatures through our team who is supportive and who is not, but we did not specifically reach out to anybody or ask for any help or anything like that. We were actually really kind of under the radar on this whole lawsuit. And, I think that was probably in retrospect, a good thing.
Jim: Yeah, right on. And, the ramifications of this, are they going to- if I saw properly, if I remember because so much is going on in the news, but I think didn’t, they didn’t Biden want to recommend that the department of justice appeal or something, isn’t that sort of isn’t that what he kind of came up with a day or two… first of all, I think he came out first and said, ah, it is what it is and uh we lost basically. And then I think he came and changed his mind and said he wants him to investigate. You can certainly correct me if I’m wrong. But isn’t that kind of where we’re standing right now.
Leslie: It was kind of humorous, but I’ll let Brent take that and explain what happened.
Brant: DOJ recommended an appeal, but left it to CDC to decide whether it was necessary to appeal. CDC later in the week said yes, we want to appeal because we want to… in its view, preserve what it sees as its statutory authority to do something like this in the future. And so the government did appeal. They filed their notice of appeal last week. What they didn’t do, which was kind of interesting is they didn’t file a motion to stay Judge Mizelles order. And that means that they made no effort to halt or suspend its effect, which they could have sought to do. I don’t think that would have been successful, but they could have sought to do that, but they didn’t do it because I think by the time this sort of preference cascade had unfolded during the week, the early part of the week, people taking off masks on airplanes and everybody’s looking so happy, they realized they had a political problem.
If they tried to claw back the mask mandate at this time, what they’re interested in doing is, clawing back what it regards as the institutional authority to do this again, or to do something very much like this in the future. And that’s, that’s really what the appeal is about at this time.
Leslie: Can I just add that the very first statement that they issued, after the ruling was DOJ said, we may appeal depending on what CDCs assessment of the situation is.
So they kind of threw CDC under the bus and that led us to then say, well, if there’s an emergency, Why would you not appeal right away? And why does CDC need to assess the situation in the coming days or weeks? Right. It was a very interesting and peculiar statement that they put out in my perspective.
And then they followed it up, I think a day or two days later saying, oh, yes, we are going to appeal. But it made it look like they weren’t really on the ball. And that’s what I thought was a bit humorous because at first they said, well, we’ll appeal if CDC wants us to. And that’s kind of a funny thing to say, if you are supposed to be the Supreme law enforcement and that’s what DOJ is supposed to be, and they didn’t come out and say, if it were a matter of law, I would have thought they’d say, we’re going to fight this because it’s wrong.
Right. They did say that we think it’s, we disagree with the ruling, but they said we’ll wait and see what CDC has to say. And I thought that was kind of humorous frankly.
Jim: Looks like we lost Brant he may have been having a bad connection, that’s why he was having problems with this audio. But I think that you can ask, or you can probably answer the next question.
We have the state of Virginia, I believe just passed a law that no counties can Institute any injections or vaccines, we have North Dakota deciding that any executive order that comes down from the Biden administration has to go before their legislature and be mirrored against their constitution to see if it meets that, you know, meets the muster. And if not, they’re going to reject the executive orders by the Biden administration.
My question is, is that one of the answers right there is to have the states stand up and say, we’re not going to follow these mandates. I mean, I don’t think it’s that bad yet, but I can’t really see the federal government, attacking one of the states, to bring them under… to bring them to heel.
If they decide that they’re not going to follow these mandates. Do you think that is Leslie, is that one of the answers is getting the power back into the hands of the states?
Leslie: Well, I think that that is exactly one of the problems. So if you go back to 1913, what happened in 1913 was really quite, earth-shattering with respect to American history.
First of all, you had the 16th amendment passed, which allowed taxation of the general public by the federal government, except there was an exemption for the giant foundations. How convenient for them, the private foundations, then what happened was they passed another amendment. I believe it was 17. I hope I didn’t invert those two or confuse those two, but that allowed senators US Senators to be popularly elected. And this is really important because hitherto senators, US senators were the representation of state legislatures in DC. They were supposed to represent the state’s interests. And when they were changed to being popularly elected, they became nothing more or any different than a congressperson.
[00:24:49] So that was a very very major change. And it meant that the power shifted to the federal government away from the states. And I think that’s been a problem, right. And then on top of that, we also had the federal reserve created and the federal reserve act at the end of the year, I believe on Christmas Eve.So this is a really, a Seminole moment in our history and not for the good, it created some very, very serious change, which has had a cascade of effects ever since then. And one of them is a shift in the balance of power from the states to the federal government. What’s also happening of course, is because the federal government can tax Americans now they have more money and then they hold the states hostage. So if you look at the swine flu crisis, they said it was a pandemic, it was never a pandemic. And the CDC was not forthcoming about how many people were really testing positive, which was a fraction of the people who were being tested.
But what happened as a result of that was that there was a mechanism in place from the World Health Organization, by which the nations had contracts with vaccine providers that were automatically triggered when a pandemic was declared. And so what happened was all this money. I think it was 7 or $8 billion went to the state health departments.
So CDC funneled all this money to the state health departments and what are the state health departments going to do? They know who butters their bread, they’re going to do their bidding. And so this situation has only gotten worse in the intervening decades since 1913. And so we have a real issue, but maybe you’ve seen that documentary Annulment, have you seen that?
Jim: No I have not, I haven’t seen it is it good?
Leslie: Yeah, it’s really good. And it’s all about how the states actually have the power and the authority to annul pretty much anything that the federal government does and that if we can just get the right people elected into our legislatures and if we can, make sure that they’re strong people of moral fiber and principle, then they will stand up for what is actually right, which is defense of our ideals, defense of the rule of law and defense of state power. So that we have as much authority on the local level as is possible.
Jim: Yeah, well put. Well, put I agree. We’ve got a break coming up here in about a minute and a half, and when we come back on the other side, we’re going to go ahead and bring up your website’s there and talk about what people can find there. We’ll talk about how your pretty much, basically a grassroots organization, that rose up and, is really making a big difference. So I think we have to encourage others to do those things. Matter of fact, let me bring up your website here and get the proper- so it’s a Health Freedom… let me bring it up here on the screen. You probably, you can’t see it, but the people that are watching can. healthfreedomdefense.org breaking news, Health Freedom Defense Fund wins the lawsuit against the federal travel mask mandate.
Great work folks, you can go there and check out what’s going on at healthfreedomdefense.org . That’s healthfreedomdefense.org, and I can’t imagine you know, most people don’t win against the federal government. They mostly lose. I gotta believe you’re probably in the very small percentage of people that actually win because they have unlimited amount of money.
I mean they just keep hiring lawyers they can have two dozen lawyers doesn’t matter… a hundred and they… you know, we all pay for it. So they have no real limits to their funding. Like we do the common person. So you gotta feel great about that.
Leslie: We do, did you want to go to break or can I comment on that?
Jim: We’re going to go to break in 15 seconds. So I’ll tell you what let’s just go. You can come in there side, folks, if you want to check out what’s going on, you can go to healthfreedomdefense.org , or critical disclosure.com where you can find all my links over at libertylinks.io.jimslinks.
This is a three-minute network break we’ll be back on the other side.
Okay folks, thanks for hanging on with the break. I’m your host James Wright this is Critical Disclosure radio. Now, if you want to lock in some of the fleeting value of your federal reserve notes, you can do that by getting some precious metals and you can help out the show. Also, if you go to 7kmetals.com/KarlaJ that’s 7kmetals.com/KarlaJ or you can call Karla at (406) 855-2761. Right now it’s not a bad time to get a hold of some precious metals. It looks like the dollar is taking a big hit, they are trading now, oil for rubles over in Russia. So I think the writing’s on the wall. And again, if you want to protect some of the wealth that is left of your federal reserve notes, go to 7kmetals.com/KarlaJ, you can get on a program where they just send it to your house in the mail, every single month.
And of course, anytime you help support our sponsors, you help support this broadcast. Okay. Let’s get back to our guests. We appreciate Leslie being on the broadcast. Leslie and Brant let me get back here and redo this a screen here. Cause I ended adjusted it. There we go.
[00:29:35] Okay, Brant welcome back. Great to have you back. It looks you’re in a much different scenery now than you were before. It’s a lot nicer I got to say…Brant: My Wi-Fi service in the house died, and so luckily I have a backup router in the back of the house.
Jim: And a Palm tree, and a backup router in a palm tree? (laughter) Thats great stuff.
Okay. Well, thank you I appreciate both of you being here today on the broadcast. Of course, we’re talking about the CDC travel mask mandate that was basically overturned by by both of you, both of your groups and I’m sure it wasn’t just you two, I’m sure there’s probably a great team of people as there usually is.
That have helped you get that. If there’s anybody that you want to matter of fact, that’s, wouldn’t be a bad idea right now, if there’s anybody else that you want to mention that gave you guys a hand or, sort of a leg up, while you’re trying to do this right now, is a great time to do that. I’ll just go ahead and turn it over to you Leslie
Leslie: Well I’d just like to say, thank you first of all, to our partner at Daviller law group, George Wentz, who was instrumental in helping me realize this dream of creating Health Freedom Defense Fund, and who has introduced me to so many fantastic attorneys. But I also want to thank my team at HFDF.
In particular, Jamie Green, who has just literally kept me alive for many months now and going forward, and also Jen Acheson and Sylvie Dore, who’ve been fantastic as well. And I also want to just say, I hope Brant doesn’t mind me saying this, but this was the first time he has challenged the administrative procedure act in any anyway, and this is not his normal purview, but oh my goodness. He is a brilliant man who did a stupendous job at understanding the law, understanding the regulations and wrote what I believe is an incredibly compelling, meticulous and brilliant complaint, which got us across the finish line. So I just want to give a shout out to Brant and of course all the people at Daviller like Matt McDonald and others who supported us through the years.
Jim: Well Brant that’s a tough act to follow, but there’s anybody that you want to thank as well?
Brant: Well, I’d like to thank Daviller associate Alan Shaw for the help he provided. But I’d also like to thank, and this may seem a little strange, but the civil litigation team at the Florida Attorney General’s office. Because, the work they did on the cruise line case really provided the template for us in this case. And, they taught me, they really gave me my crash course in the administrative procedure act.
Jim: Fantastic. So are you guys going to springboard and use this as an opportunity? I mean, what I think is when you, when you’re successful at something, I hope that people are showing their appreciation by helping to fund you because. Here’s what I say, if you’re not going to be out there and I’ve always said this, if you’re not going to be out there in the front lines, doing the battles like you guys are at least fund the people that are, if you can’t, if you don’t have time or you don’t have the inclination to do that, at least support those people that are doing that.
Have you found that – is that followed up when.., since you’ve got this great ruling, have people, I know that brought great attention to you, which is much deserved. Have people started helping you to support you financially? Cause I would imagine you’re going to take this as a springboard and I want to speak for you, but this is a springboard to start fighting other battles and you know, and sort of winning some more of our freedoms back. Any comment on that? Either one of you wants to follow up.
Leslie: Well, first of all, we’ve already got… we have filed over a dozen lawsuits in the last 12 months and we have two active right now against the federal government’s vaccine mandates for federal employees we’re representing or working with about over 6,000 of them at Federal Employees for Freedom. And we’re also working with the folks at US Freedom Flyers. We have a lawsuit against the federal government and their mandate, for federal contractors and subcontractors. And then on top of that, we’re suing the Los Angeles Unified School District because they mandated the jabs for their staff and employees and the city of San Francisco and we’ve got something going on against the state of Oregon. So we’re doing a ton and there has been a tremendous outpouring of happiness and joy and photos, which is the thing that’s most gratifying for us. And then we’ve actually seen a big uptake as well in donations. But listen, this litigation is so expensive and we’re going to have to fund the appeal. So we need as much as people are willing to give. And listen, no donation is too small. Literally, the bread and butter is small donations. So 10 bucks, 25 bucks, you can actually become a member of Health Freedom Defense for $10 and you can subscribe to our newsletter and all sorts of things like that and follow our work.
And so we’ve, we are super active and we’ve got many other lawsuits that we are contemplating, which I’m not at liberty to speak about right now.
Jim: Folks, I encourage you, those of you in the listening audience, go to healthfreedomdefense.org, and sign up for 10 bucks for crying out loud. This is expensive work to do this.
And for people… for some reason, I don’t know why there’s this disconnect. That people will sit and pay $14.95 a month for cable to watch fake news, but then someone that’s actually out there, you know, in the battle and ask you for donations oh, I can’t believe they’re just, they’re taken back. They clutch their pearls. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. You’re asking for money. It’s just… I never… I don’t understand. What do people think that all this stuff, because you’re a conservative or because you believe in the constitution that magically it all happens for free? It is really frustrating for me. We know this is not true. So folks support healthfreedomdefense.org.
Sorry, I’m a little bit… feeling a little salty today. I’m in a little bit of a rant mode. So don’t mind me, please.
Leslie: No worries. I want to just, I want everybody who’s watching or listening or however, they’re engaging with us to know that I do not take a salary. I do everything I do on a volunteer basis. In fact, my husband and I have actually given money to Health Freedom Defense Fund I do it because I care because I have a 19-year-old son. And because I don’t want the world that is this dystopian reality being foisted upon us. I don’t want that. I want to live in a free country. I want to be free myself. I want to be able to make the choices for myself that I want. I don’t want my son and his children whenever he has them to be able to do that. So this is truly something that is a… it’s a commitment from my heart. And I am so grateful somebody actually, Jeff Childers in Florida did a fundraiser for us this week and raised us a bunch of money.
[00:35:55] And he has the group Coffee and COVID and they put out great material, but also he made a call to his people who his followers to support us. And let me tell you, they open their hearts and their wallets and they’ve done so, but that’s what we need. We’ve got people accusing me. Literally somebody went on my substack last week and said, oh, you should be ashamed of yourself. You’re probably making tons of money and you should have to release your tax returns so that everybody can review them. And I just laughed. I’m like you’re criticizing a little person who started a small nonprofit and who does it all for free?And you’re not saying a word about the tens of billions that the pharmaceutical industry is making off of these jabs that are injuring and killing people. Like how misguided or delusional can you be? And I’m sorry to be straightened myself, but it’s outrageous. And the only way that we can fight back is if we all bind together, support those of us who are doing this work and let’s take it to them.
Jim: That’s right. Sadly, many people are toxic.
Brant I’m going to ask you something I know it’s may not be your area- definitely, you may be using this particular procedure, but I want to get your comment on as an attorney, they’re doing here in my area that I’m in and other areas around here.
They’re actually going after the person’s bond. They’re trying to like you know, bonds for the win, I think is one of the big organizations are consequential surety bonds. Do you see that is, maybe not necessarily in your CDC travel mask case, but do you see that as being an effective way? You know, we’re trying to take the power back and put it back in the hands of the people because it’s our government right? They’ve just hijacked it. Do you think that’s an effective way? Is that something that you’ve, and maybe you haven’t researched that or looked into it? I’m sorry to put you on the spot, but I’d like to get your comments. If you have any.
Brant: Well, I, frankly, I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say, they’re going after people’s bonds. It’s not an issue that, that is that I’ve been aware of that if you could explain a little more, I might be able to give you an answer.
Leslie: I can explain it if you want.
Jim: Yes sure go ahead, Leslie.
Leslie: So, first of all, let me just say that. One of the reasons that we won is because. We had- we have Brant who is a very experienced, very sophisticated attorney. And it takes people who are experienced in federal courts experience with the system to be able to win these and his area of expertise, international litigation and arbitration are very different from the surety bond challenges, which doesn’t mean that they won’t work, it’s just that it’s, a major difference and attorneys have areas of expertise, which lend them to certain areas. And so that’s where a Brant is. And he’s invaluable in that surety bonds are bonds that any public official holds. So if you’re a school board member, or if you’re a city council person, you have to have insurance in case you are derelict in your duties and responsibilities. And what’s been happening is that there is this group called bonds for the win that’s doing some amazing stuff and they are serving school boards, the members of school boards and they’re serving city council persons with claims against their surety bonds. So they’re reporting them to their insurance companies and they have made an impact. And what happens is that the insurance company is bound to go and investigate what’s going on. And if they are violating any laws or any of their oath or commitments they’ve made, then they can actually rescind their insurance. And if they rescind their insurance they can’t work anymore. And so it is a very effective means I believe, it has the potential. I don’t want to overstate it, but I think it’s definitely worth a try to go and approach it this way because it’s a way to actually – it’s a shot across the bow and it’s a reminder to these officials that they report to us, not to the health department, not to a governor or to anybody else that they are there to serve the people that are public servants.
Jim: I appreciate that explanation. Thank you very much well put. Have you had any… I don’t know, they wouldn’t be overt, maybe veiled threats or any push back from the federal government or anything about what you’re doing. Like we were talking about Leslie, , the federal government doesn’t really like to lose. And when they do lose, they usually, find some way to, inflict some sort of pain and the people that beat them. Now, I’m not saying they’re going to do this in this case. My question is, I mean you are probably aware of that? You see like, James O’Keefe, for example. Let’s say from the Project Veritas, you see the, kind of the giving him the business because he’s exposing the corruption. Have you thought about that? And has any of that sort of, have you had any of that, any that come across your way? Since you’ve been in this fight.
Brant: So far, all I’ve gotten is a couple of phone calls from some cranks who, you know, who wanted to share their personal opinions. But, as far as the federal government’s concerned, I’m aware of the way the Biden administration behaves. It’s really a continuation of the Obama administration, which was a really a Chicago-style gangster government, which treated government as a protection racket. And I’m aware of the chances that, they may come after me personally, but right now, they’re the ones who are retreating. They’re the ones who are on the run. What my sources inside DOJ informed me that no one outside DOJ was aware of this case before the ruling came down. And so that, that sort of disorder and disorientation you saw for the administration last week was a real reflection of the fact that they did not see this coming and that gives me a great deal of pleasure.
Jim: Yeah, indeed. Leslie, how about on your end? Have you gotten any pushback?
Leslie: Oh, well, I mean, not from the federal government, but we have been, we’ve had people sending us horrible pornographic images and signing us up for, horrible pornographic accounts and nasty emails and letters and messages and people calling us out for all sorts of horrible things. And you know, one thing I want to just make really clear is Health Freedom Defense Fund is not a partisan group. We are not conservative. We are not liberal. We embrace all who stand for health freedom. That’s it. We just want people to have the choice. If you want to keep wearing masks or you want to wear three masks, that’s your choice.
If you believe masks work, that’s your choice. If you want to get a jab that’s your choice. I just don’t believe we at Health Freedom Defense Fund just do not believe that it’s government’s job to be dictating what we can or can’t do with our bodies. And we question, where’s it going to end if they do? So all of this hate mail is ridiculous because we’re not taking aside except for the side of freedom and bodily autonomy. And I can’t understand why all Americans can’t get behind that kind of stance.
Jim: Just doesn’t make sense to me either. I can tell you that much. Do you have- do you have branches, if someone wanted to say the launch there own Health Freedom Defense Fund sort of subchapter or something in their county or their state. Is that something that you offer them? Are you in Idaho, is that where you’re centered? Are you across the country? Are you getting chapters going across the country?
Leslie: We are a national organization in that we deal with people, you know, we’re not only in Idaho in any way. We launch lawsuits across the country. We educate on a national level. We advocate and support people across the country. So we are a national organization, but we’re not even two years old yet.
And so we are not at the chapter standpoint, but we’re getting there and, we’ve got a really full plate with all the lawsuits that we have. We just want to get some more wins. So that’s where we’re focused, but as we get more and more support and as we grow, we’ll look into doing more things like that.
At this point, we’re really focused on winning for the clients that we have. And on educating Americans about their true rights and freedoms because I think Americans don’t realize anymore about the three branches of government that our rights don’t come from government that our government is supposed to be of for and by the people.
And that it’s actually our duty to hold them accountable, all these incredible ideas that our founding fathers put down to paper right. In all their writings and the Federalist papers and elsewhere, it’s just, it’s inspiring and wonderful. If people just pay attention and read about them, educate themselves, and then actually stand up for them.
So that’s what we’re focused on.
Jim: So maybe they don’t call it Health Freedom Defense Fund, but there’s nothing stopping somebody in any community from getting together with a group of people and getting together and discussing health freedom issues. And eventually at some point maybe when you get expanded out, you guys could link up, but they’d be at least kind of organization in place. And that type of thing. I mean, you would encourage that I’m sure.
Leslie: 100% and listen we already have tremendous resources on our website, so I’ve made many many presentations about what’s going on. The financial aspects of it presentations like at the State Capitol in Idaho, a couple of months ago about our rights and freedoms unpacking the Seminole court case Jacobson versus Massachusetts and explaining what it is and what it isn’t and educating people.
And then we’ve got like a whole resource page, which helps people to understand what they can do if they’re being threatened, how they can act to educate them. So we have lots and lots of things that support them and they could get together and watch those videos. Watch our interviews, watch the presentations and share those resources with people as well.
Jim: Yeah, great it looks like there’s a lot… I’m here now it looks like there’s a lot of stuff on here, a lot of resources, frequently asked questions, legal corner. I’m sure that’s probably where you come in Brant. That’s probably your area of expertise. We’ve only got about, believe it or not, it went by so fast. We’ve only just got- just over four minutes, about four and a half minutes left on the broadcast. I’m going to give, you both a chance to say anything you’d like to say in closing or anything you’d like to impart upon the folks or how they can start getting involved or anything like that.
I’ll go ahead and turn it over to you. We’ll start with you first, Brant, anything you want to say in closing, and then Leslie we’ll move over to you.
Brant: I would just say that, In a conversation with somebody who begins launching an ad hominem attack on the judge who entered this decision, rather than play that game, just ask the person, what is it specifically about the decision that you disagree with? Where do you think her reasoning and analysis were flawed and why? You know, engage the argument. Let’s leave the misogynistic ad hominem aside.
Jim: Leslie, anything you’d like to say in closing?
Leslie: Yeah. I’d just like to say that I really engage or I hope that people engage, that people understand that those of us who believe in Liberty are actually the many and the ones who are trying to take away, our freedom are in the minority. And if we stand up and we hold them accountable, we can make a difference. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. And we’re this little nonprofit that just put our minds to making a impact on this and we viewed the masks and the mask mandate was kind of the tip of the spear in terms of health freedom issues. So it’s one of many that we are fighting and it’s not just us. You can fight by going to your school board. You can run for office, run for school board, run for local city council, run for state legislature, all these kinds of things, because the more Americans who are aware, educated about their rights, concerned about their rights, and willing to stand up for our freedoms, the better off we’re going to be in the long run. So I really hope that you will join with me and, engage in this in this essentially battle, which is what it is a battle over freedom.
Jim: The last question for both of you. Do you think you’re going to try to lock down again this fall? Do you think you’re going to try to come back with the lockdown, Leslie?
Leslie: I think that’s- I don’t want to engage in speculation, but there’s clearly certain things that are a foot, which are of deep concern to me. One is the WHO’s pandemic treaty, which would confer extraordinary power to the world health organization, which would supersede our own laws.
That’s one piece. And the other piece is that they keep saying that they want to preserve, they want to fight this lawsuit in order to preserve CDCs authority for the next pandemic. And we’re seeing massive lockdowns in Shanghai, 26 million people and things are getting worse in Italy again as well.
So there’s definitely some area to be concerned about. And I’m worried that Americans have relaxed in this false sense of security that we’re through it.
Jim: I think that’s well put, Brant, what’s your gut feeling tell you, think you’re going to try it again? It was so successful the first time.
Brant: I think that it would be politically difficult for them to do anything like that prior to the midterms. They’re political- there’s a lot of political pressure on the Biden administration and on liberal governors to declare victory over COVID and hopefully move on. But we’ll see what happens. Nothing really surprises me anymore.
Leslie: Can I just say, even if we do get past COVID, they’re still working to force these jabs on us. Take away our rights, implement this new pandemic treaty, and it’s imperative that people stay engaged because we can’t do it without millions of people being engaged.
Jim: Yeah. Folks are not going to let the whole… the health card or the pass whatever they want to do. They’re not going to let that go. Cause it’s not about your health and you guys know this, this is about control. It’s always been about control. They don’t care really. If they cared about your health, they wouldn’t have tried to squash the results of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine and all these other things that seem to help.
Anyway, we are just out of time. Great, discussion. Appreciate having you both on the broadcast healthfreedomdefense.org. That’s healthfreedomdefense.org., criticaldisclosure.com or Northwestlibertynews.com. And if you want to catch all the websites and this broadcast, rebroadcast, you can go to Libertylinks.io/jimslinks.
I want to thank my guest, Brant Hadaway, and Leslie Manookian till next time, this is James White for Critical Disclosure radio saying bye now.
