Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Oct. 18 sent a letter to Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda L. Fagan to request a briefing on the Coast Guard’s process for reviewing religious accommodation exemption applications to the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The GOP lawmakers said in the letter that they had received information that “indicates that the adjudication process for exemption applications was a pro forma exercise designed to reach predetermined conclusions—to deny requests and appeals—in nearly every single case.”
Rather than focusing on the individual merits of each accommodation request, the letter alleged, the Coast Guard “created a digital tool to assist in more efficiently denying appeals.”…