Freedom

By Allan Stein

An Ohio attorney at the forefront of the national COVID-19 debate says President Joe Biden’s proposal to shift power to the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare viral pandemics is a legal ploy to circumvent the United States Constitution.

“I think that’s absolutely what this is. This isn’t as simple as giving up our sovereignty. This is a very complex legal move,” said Attorney Thomas Renz in an interview with The Epoch Times.

“This is horrendous. To even propose something like this is mindblowing,” Renz said.

Renz is the lead attorney in several significant cases brought in Ohio, New Mexico, Maine, and nationally, regarding forced COVID-19 vaccines, illegal lockdowns, big-tech censorship, questionable death numbers, and other pandemic-related issues.

He currently represents America’s Frontline Doctors and Make Americans Free Again, organizations that oppose unconstitutional federal health mandates.

Renz recently began speaking out against Biden’s 13 proposed amendments to the UN’s International Health Regulations (IHR) that govern WHO operations.

Such a move, he said, would give the WHO power to declare public health emergencies in the United States, using whatever evidence it wants.

The IHR changes, if adopted, would grant broad authority to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanhom Ghebreysus, a former Ethiopian government minister who has been in the role since 2017.

It’s “more than a little suspect,” Renz said, noting that any treaty ratified by Congress has roughly the same statutory weight as federal law.

“Federal law has more authority than state law. If there’s a dispute between federal law and state law, federal law wins,” he said.

“A treaty, if ratified, generally would trump state law. In terms of the U.S., that’s how it works. The question is not whether the WHO can do this, but what kind of an impact [will it have], how does it affect the U.S.—those sorts of things.

“To that extent, it could have indirect authority.”

Opposition Builds

This week, opposition from African delegates to the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, has prompted continued discussions over Biden’s proposed amendments.

Under the U.S. Constitution, Renz said Biden could use his executive authority to transfer power to the WHO in public health emergencies, sparking constitutional challenges.

“The Constitution trumps any treaty—period,” Renz said. “If there’s a dispute between the Constitution and any other law—including a treaty—the Constitution always wins.”

The WHO’s primary role is to provide input in public health matters, but it does not have the legal authority to direct health policy at the national level.

However, the IHR amendments could change all that.

“They are proposing to have more authority to do things within a nation,” Renz said. “Does that mean the nation loses its sovereignty? No. The WHO couldn’t come into the United States and do anything the United States couldn’t do constitutionally because the Constitution would be the line in the sand in terms of what they can and cannot do.”

Renz said the Constitution is broad concerning a public health emergency.

“What we’ve seen over the past two years is what I see as a gross abuse of power by the federal government. We’re still working through the constitutionality of what has happened. We don’t have all of this done in the courts yet. There haven’t been rulings on a lot of this stuff. We don’t know where a lot of this is going to end up,” Renz said.

“[President Donald] Trump told [the WHO] to pound sand” during COVID-19. “Biden would probably do what he’s told under the guise of what he’s empowered to do as president. The president could claim this is through the treaty power, and with it his power as president. He’s authorizing the WHO to take this action or that action to assist the U.S.

“One of the things I would be very concerned about is what information on Americans he [would] share under the guise of public health. We know they’ve been gathering genetic data. We suspect they have quite a bit of information on our genetics through PCR tests—we don’t know what they’ve been getting. They haven’t said. We know that they’re gathering it.”

COVID-19 Epic Fail

Renz criticized the WHO as the “same crew that failed epically on everything related to COVID.”

“The WHO is still not sure whether this was developed in a Chinese lab. The WHO has been a disaster. Why in God’s name would we want to empower them to do anything?”

Though international agreements weigh differently in each country, he said, “if enough countries sign on [with the IHR changes], you could have 50 countries producing garbage science that’s not accurate, not peer-reviewed in any meaningful way.”

“What if the WHO and 50 other countries decide there’s a crisis, and that the United States is contributing to that crisis because we won’t let the WHO come in and do whatever they want to do? Those 50 countries could say, ‘You know what? We’re going to sanction the U.S.’ That could have a huge impact” on the economic supply chain.

Citing the Biden administration’s failed effort to use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to mandate COVID-19 vaccines in the workplace, Renz said the WHO pushing a monkeypox vaccine in the United States, for example, would face a similar constitutional hurdle.

“If the federal government couldn’t mandate [vaccines], neither could the WHO mandate it. But they’d try—absolutely they’d try. I think what they’re trying to do is leverage what we know to be vast powers of the president in terms of international relations. They’re trying to use that as an indirect means to force Americans—to force the public into something that would be difficult to challenge in the courts.”

“I don’t think Biden is aware of what’s going on. I think he’s selling out to whoever is pulling the strings. We’ve got to look at who’s promoting this. This whole thing reeks of a money and power grab,” Renz said.