During the pandemic, government officials and the courts quietly dismantled the U.S. Constitution, stripping Americans of key constitutional protections, according to Florida resident Brian Ward.
In a 29-page letter to Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), Ward said that through a series of legal rulings and government actions related to COVID-19 mandates, Americans may have lost the ability to refuse medical interventions, protect their private biomedical information and seek justice when their rights are violated.
Ward accused the courts of nullifying one of the Constitution’s most fundamental protections — the right to due process — and modifying the Constitution without a formal amendment.
Ward’s accusations stem in part from a lawsuit he filed in July 2025 against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and then-FDA Commissioner Martin Makary.
Ward challenged 21 C.F.R. Section 50.22, an FDA rule that allows certain clinical investigations to proceed without participants’ informed consent. He argued that the rule violated his constitutional rights to bodily autonomy and due process and his right to be free from involuntary servitude.
The court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Ward lacked standing to bring the claims.
On a recent episode of the “DarkHorse Podcast,” hosts Bret Weinstein, Ph.D., and Heather Heying, Ph.D., discussed Ward’s argument and why its implications extend far beyond COVID-19 or vaccine mandates.
“What Mr. Ward is advancing here is a very exhaustive discussion of the way in which our rights have been substantially altered,” Weinstein said. “He argues that, effectively, the Constitution is modified without the process that is supposed to be required to modify the Constitution.”
At the center of Ward’s argument is the due process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments, which protect Americans from government actions that deprive them of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
Weinstein explained the principle in simple terms: “The upshot is that they can’t just take stuff from you.”
In his letter, Ward argues that court rulings have eroded that protection, allowing government officials to override individual rights while leaving people with little recourse. Ward copied Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others on the letter addressed to Moody.
