Lt. Mark Bashaw, who was discharged for refusing to get the COVID shot, wear a mask, and submit to testing, thanked ‘most importantly Jesus Christ Almighty’ after being pardoned by Trump.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) -- President Donald Trump pardoned a U.S. Army lieutenant who was convicted during the Biden administration for resisting the U.S. military’s COVID-19 protocols.
1st Lieutenant Mark Bashaw – who chose not to submit to the Army’s demand that he take the untested COVID-19 “vaccine,” refused to wear a mask indoors at the base, and rejected twice-weekly COVID-19 testing – was discharged after his military court martial.
Bashaw was serving as an entomologist at the Army Public Health Center in Aberdeen, Maryland, at the time.
In an X post in December 2023, he explained that he was convicted “because I refused to participate with lies.”
On Wednesday, President Trump issued a slew of pardons for those who had been unfairly targeted by the previous administration, including Bashaw.
“I just received a Presidential Pardon from President Donald J. Trump,” Bashaw wrote on X. “I am humbled, grateful, and ready to continue fighting for truth and justice in this great nation.”
Bashaw then thanked several people by name, and “ALL the Reprimandos (COVID-19 Reprimanded Ranks) /Patriots who took a stand against tyranny, and most importantly Jesus Christ Almighty! Glory to God.”
“Time for accountability!” he declared.
Bashaw included a video clip in his X post from April 28, 2022, made before heading to his court martial later that day in which he prayed that the Constitution would be upheld.
Thanks to President Trump’s pardon, Bashaw’s criminal record has been wiped out.
In 2021, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mandated the COVID-19 shot for all military personnel. As a result, over 8,700 individuals were ousted from military service.
Shortly after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order (EO) to reinstate servicemen and women who had been forced during the Biden administration to leave military service after their requests for exemptions from the untested COVID-19 jab had been denied.
Those who were discharged “solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine” are to be “reinstated under this section to revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation,” the EO explained. “The vaccine mandate was an unfair, overbroad, and completely unnecessary burden on our service members.”
“Further, the military unjustly discharged those who refused the vaccine, regardless of the years of service given to our Nation, after failing to grant many of them an exemption that they should have received,” continued the EO, adding, “Federal Government redress of any wrongful dismissals is overdue.”
