CIA Investigated Officers for Espionage Over Not Taking COVID-19 Vaccine: Lawsuit

The CIA investigated thousands of personnel and contractors for not receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new lawsuit.

In 2021, then-President Joe Biden imposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal employees and contractors. Shortly after, the CIA’s chief operating officer directed the CIA’s Counter Espionage Department to investigate all unvaccinated contractors and workers within the agency, plaintiffs said in the suit, which was filed on June 30 in federal court in Virginia.

“Any employee or contractor who refused the vaccine was treated by the Agency as a threat to the United States government and ordered to be investigated as the same,” the suit states.

A cross-agency group established by former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard learned in 2025 from a whistleblower of the order and asked for confirmation from the CIA. The CIA responded by confirming the investigation of thousands of employees and contractors, according to the legal complaint. The CIA declined to cite an authority for the investigation order.

James Erdman III, one of the unvaccinated employees, formally asked the CIA to remove all material from the investigations and information in employee files that stemmed from the probes, lawyers representing unvaccinated CIA employees said. The agency never responded, leading to the lawsuit.

Erdman, who worked with Gabbard’s group, recently testified to the Senate about the CIA spying on the group as it worked on a number of matters, including the CIA’s change in its assessment of the origins of COVID-19.

The suit seeks certification of a class of employees who did not take a vaccine and were investigated. Plaintiffs also want the court to declare the order from the chief operating officer illegal and force the CIA to remove any information yielded from the investigation from employee and contractor files.

The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

None of the workers affected by the investigations have been fired.

“The fact that the investigation occurred in the first instance, and the fact that there has been no assurances that anything stemming from that investigation has been essentially wiped clean, it does, unfortunately, set conditions—precedent—for where if there is any reason or need to investigate any of these individuals at any future date, this could be used as a basis to do so,” Carol Thompson, one of the lawyers representing the officers, told The Epoch Times. “So it kind of unfortunately puts them in—the employees and contractors—in a precarious situation where they otherwise never should have been.”