Judge allows CIA to fire former health official

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) — A federal judge on Friday refused to order the CIA  to keep employing a health officer who is suing the agency over claims that she was targeted because of her advocacy for the Covid-19 vaccine.

Ruling from the bench, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Joe Biden nominee, said that he did not find that the lawsuit brought by Terry Adirim showed a likelihood of success — one of the components needed for a restraining order. The CIA can fire Adirim while her legal team presses her case against the spy agency.

In the lawsuit filed May 2, Adirim asserts that the CIA and its leader, John Ratcliffe, along with activists associated with conservative causes, denied her due process and the right to privacy. As put in court filings: “Someone at the CIA again illegally leaked non-public, private information” about Adirim.

Her troubles stem from a recommendation she made during an earlier stint as acting assistant secretary for health affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense. In that role, her work coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, and she advised giving the vaccine to service members. Since then, she had moved to another post as director of the CIA’s Center for Global Health Services.

Then, on April 2, President Donald Trump spoke to Laura Loomer, a conservative activist, and listened to her hiring recommendations. Reportage around that meeting centered upon the firing of national security staffers who were allegedly disloyal to the president.

But the next day, Adirim’s supervisor fired her, giving no reason. Soon, the conservative website Breitbart News connected her firing to the vaccine mandate. Ivan Raiklin, a conservative activist and defendant in the lawsuit, posted a message about the article.

Raiklin attended Friday’s hearing and afterward defended his opposition to the vaccine mandate, handing reporters a U.S. Department of Defense memo issued May 7 that describes the mandate as “unlawful as implemented.” He also brushed aside questions about whether he had received inside information about her employment.

Adirim’s complaint is “taken up by a speculative and unsupported theory as to why she was terminated that has no relation to actual events,” wrote Carolyn Wesnousky, assistant U.S. attorney representing the CIA, in court filings.

Wesnousky characterized the lawsuit as a “classic contract dispute about the termination of her employment.”

The complaint is not a simple contract claim, countered Adirim’s attorney, Kevin T. Carroll. “It is an allegation of serious and unconstitutional misconduct by the government.”

Adirim’s firing is a “classic case of a stigma-plus firing by the government, one that implicates her liberty and property interests, and her constitutional right to due process,” he wrote in court filings.

She was fired approximately one month short of when she would qualify for full federal retirement benefits.