{"id":327617,"date":"2026-06-03T07:16:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T07:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=327617"},"modified":"2026-06-04T06:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T06:31:05","slug":"in-sharp-betrayal-trumps-doj-files-legal-brief-arguing-employers-have-right-to-deny-religiously-based-exemptions-to-vaccine-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=327617","title":{"rendered":"In ‘sharp betrayal,’ Trump’s DOJ files legal brief arguing employers have right to deny religiously based exemptions to vaccine mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"

DOJ risks setting precedent that treats faith as ‘second-class’ in \u201csharp betrayal\u201d that could erode religious freedom for millions of Americans.<\/h3>\n

Leo Hohmann \u2013 Leo\u2019s Newsletter June 2, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I took a short break last week and was only able to get out one article, but this is one that I cannot let slip through the cracks. It may be a few days old but I\u2019m guessing that a lot of you missed it due to the holiday so here we go.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration wants American workers stripped of their ability to claim religiously based exemptions to vaccine mandates forced upon them by their employers. Yes, you read that right.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief last week before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that employees should be able to claim medical exemptions but not religious ones. Accommodating a person\u2019s religious exemption from a vaccine mandate is just too big of a \u201chardship\u201d on corporate employers, the adminstration argued, even as it acknowledged that medical exemptions were perfectly OK and reasonable for employers to accommodate.<\/p>\n

This is just the latest example of Trump\u2019s non-stop kowtowing to the demands of corporate America, to the detriment of us working stiffs. He will seemingly go to any length to back the interests of big business, whether it\u2019s offering Big Ag and Big Pharma legal protections for their poisonous foods or cancer-causing products, to encouraging them to blanket America with unhealthy data surveillance centers, or allowing them now to force people to get vaccines against their sincerely held religious beliefs, Donald Trump has become a prostitute for the billionaire Epstein class.<\/p>\n

Below is an excerpt from veteran health reporter Jeffery Jaxon\u2019s May 27 article<\/a><\/strong> on the latest betrayal of the American worker.<\/p>\n

In a stunning reversal the Department of Justice under President Trump has filed a brief<\/a> urging the U.S. Supreme Court to deny review in John Doe et al. v. Kathy Hochul, No. 24-1015. The case involves former New York healthcare workers fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccination on religious grounds under the state\u2019s now-repealed Section 2.61 mandate, which allowed medical exemptions but barred religious ones.<\/em><\/p>\n

The move is in stark contrast to the COVID-era legal momentum across the board<\/a> seeing courts rule in favor of employees fired for religious vaccine refusals.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Second Circuit upheld the employers\u2019 refusal to accommodate, citing \u201cundue hardship.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The DOJ\u2019s Call for the Views of the Solicitor General brief argues the petition is a poor vehicle for review\u2014no circuit split, a repealed law, and petitioners who sought only a full exemption rather than alternatives like reassignment\u2014while defending the policy\u2019s consistency with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.<\/em><\/p>\n

This position, however, draws sharp criticism for weakening core protections against religious discrimination. Aaron Siri, a leading litigator who has represented numerous affected healthcare workers, called out the filing in an X post stating:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

The brief\u2019s analysis hinges on semantics and procedural technicalities. It acknowledges that petitioners claimed New York\u2019s mandate conflicted with Title VII (of the Civil Rights Act) by foreclosing reasonable religious accommodations. Yet it frames their requests as demands for an \u201cexemption\u201d prohibited by state law, rather than the \u201caccommodation\u201d that federal law requires.<\/em><\/p>\n

Siri dismantled this in a follow-up post:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of defending these wrongfully terminated workers, the DOJ nonsensically and shamefully plays word games to characterize their requests as seeking an \u2018exemption\u2019 (which New York law prohibited) instead of an \u2018accommodation\u2019 (an option federal law requires). It then relies on this semantic nonsense to argue that the Supreme Court should not review the Second Circuit\u2019s holding that a policy providing for medical but not religious exemptions is legal.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Siri, who is perhaps the most experienced lawyer defending Americans who experienced COVID-era oversteps of basic liberties and freedoms, described the practical outcome bluntly: the mandate \u201cpermitted only a medical exemption and did not include a religious exemption.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Healthcare workers with sincere religious objections were fired en masse. He continued:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving dealt with scores of religious employees in New York that lost their jobs under this policy, the Trump administration\u2019s position is a sharp betrayal. The DOJ should have simply argued the obvious \u2013 that Section 2.61 foreclosed any religious exemption and hence should not stand under federal law. Period. That would have taken one or two pages. Instead, it spends over 20 pages creating a word salad of nonsense to justify New York\u2019s and the DOJ\u2019s unjustifiable position.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This approach is dangerous because it normalizes differential treatment: medical exemptions are permissible, but religious ones trigger \u201cundue hardship\u201d claims tied to state penalties. <\/em><\/p>\n

If a law bars religious accommodations outright, Title VII should preempt it\u2014yet here the filing accepts a policy that functionally did exactly that while claiming otherwise.<\/em><\/p>\n

The stakes extend far beyond healthcare. A Supreme Court denial, influenced by this brief, could embolden employers nationwide to impose vaccine or other medical mandates while dismissing religious objections as unreasonable.<\/em><\/p>\n

It undermines the free exercise principles reinforced in cases like Fulton v. City of Philadelphia and signals that post-COVID religious liberty battles remain unwinnable in court. Workers facing future mandates\u2014for flu shots, boosters, or novel therapies\u2014would find their faith subordinated to bureaucratic convenience.<\/em><\/p>\n

Siri\u2019s critique highlights a missed opportunity for the administration that campaigned on restoring freedoms eroded during the pandemic. By playing procedural games instead of forcefully defending Title VII\u2019s mandate to accommodate sincere religious practice, the DOJ risks setting precedent that treats faith as second-class. As Siri warned, this is no minor technical brief; it is a \u201csharp betrayal\u201d that could erode religious freedom for millions. The Supreme Court must recognize the broader threat and take the case to reaffirm that no employer or state can lawfully force a choice between livelihood and conscience.<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.<\/p>\n

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Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the latest example of Trump\u2019s non-stop kowtowing to the demands of corporate America. He constantly backs the interests of big business, whether it\u2019s offering Big Ag and Big Pharma legal protections for their poisonous foods or cancer-causing products, or encouraging the spread of monolithic data surveillance centers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39267,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=327617"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327622,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327617\/revisions\/327622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=327617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=327617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=327617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}