Exclusive–General to Be Forced Out of Air Force Over Stance on Biden Admin’s COVID Policies

A decorated fighter pilot and one-star general will be forced out of the U.S. Air Force on December 31, even after the Board for Correction of Military Records (BCMR) found that he was unfairly targeted due to his opinions on COVID mandates.

Brigadier General Christopher Sage is one of many service members who are still fighting to keep their jobs or get them back after the Biden administration zeroed in on those who dared to question its vaccine, masking, or quarantine protocols. What makes his case particularly rare is that a Pentagon official overturned the BCMR’s ruling that he was a “victim of an injustice” in a shocking decision that has been devastating to Sage, his wife, and five children. 

An order that Sage’s attorney says was signed by President Joe Biden’s autopen officially removed him from a promotion list, giving him just days before he will be forcefully retired from the military after decades of service. 

While stationed at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and working at Ramstein Air Base in Germany for the Allied Air Command (AIRCOM), Sage spoke exclusively with Breitbart News on Monday.

“For three years and 10 months, we colored inside the lines. We followed the appeal process,” the 31-year veteran said. “We appealed it to my chain of command, and they took no action against me. We appealed it, ultimately, to the BCMR, and we won… It just seems like every time we take two steps forward, we take three steps back. And here we are at the eleventh hour, and we finally decided it may be time to make a little bit of noise here, just to try to get the senior leaders’ attention.”

The debacle started back in 2021, when the one-star general was on his seventh deployment. He arrived to be a wing commander at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base (MSAB) in Jordan. COVID-positive airmen were being quarantined in a structure surrounded by barbed wire. Appalled at the harsh treatment, Sage ordered the barbed wire to be torn down and relocated the infected airmen to VIP quarters with in-room bathrooms so they could recover with dignity.  

That was the first major time he pushed back on the base’s pandemic policy. He went on to end redundant COVID testing — which was not even required by the Air Force or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — to allow maintenance personnel to remove their masks when working outside in the hot desert, and to become the first Air Force deployed commander in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to reopen the gyms.

When airmen who were forced by then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to get COVID vaccinations brought up concerns of myocarditis and fertility issues, Sage voiced them to the Air Force’s medical “experts” who told him that the jab was 100 percent safe.

A complainant on base reported Sage’s aforementioned actions to an Air Force Inspector General (IG) investigator back in Washington, D.C., who used said actions as “evidence” to accuse him of not establishing a healthy command climate with the airmen on base.

Sage’s questioning of the safety of the vaccine was labeled “not trusting his subordinates.”

To fight these allegations, Sage had a survey conducted on base. The findings were exceptional — 73 percent of respondents said that their personal morale was either “high” or “very high.”

The investigator ignored the survey.

“This is the sad part. This is how you know you’re outgunned,” Sage stated.

On top of allegedly creating a hostile work environment, the complainant also accused him of numerous instances of committing waste, fraud, and abuse of military resources — all dismissed without evidence. 

Even though the complainant’s waste, fraud, and abuse accusations were not found to be credible, the IG investigator still relied on his testimony to pin Sage down on the allegations about the base’s work atmosphere. 

Furthermore, the investigator refused to interview Sage’s commanding officer, a four-star general, or the 29 witnesses who supported the brigadier general. When Sage asked the Department of War (DOW) IG to review the Air Force IG investigation, the Pentagon directed the Air Force IG to investigate itself in one of multiple instances that Sage called a “conflict of interest.” 

On top of that, the majority of Sage’s eight Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests into the investigation have gone ignored for over 18 months, and the couple that have been responded to produced no documents. 

As a result of the investigation, Sage was formally disqualified from being promoted to a two-star general by a memorandum marked with President Biden’s signature on March 28, 2024 — a move that Sage and his legal team say should be voided due to the use of Biden’s autopen. 

“Under the law, you can only be a one-star [general] for five years, and you can only be a two-star [general] for five years,” Sage explained. “And so when I was on the promotion list, I was just waiting to promote, just like in a normal process… you go to the board, you make the list, then the president nominates you, and then the Senate confirms you.”

If he had been promoted, the five-year clock would have restarted. Since he was removed from consideration, Sage’s separation date looms on December 31. 

Quoting a four-star general who had given him some insight into the process, he said, “‘One way they deal with people like you is they just wait you out. They just run the shot clock out on you.’ And that’s definitely the way we feel right now.”

Pointing to President Donald Trump’s November social media post announcing that any documents signed by Biden’s autopen would be “terminated,” Sage said, “Therefore, legally, I should be back on the two star list.”

Things started looking up when the BCMR took a look at the case.

After an Officer Grade Determination came back completely clean, the board said:

In anticipation of the applicant’s forced statutory retirement after five years of service in the grade of brigadier general, the Air Force conducted an Officer Grade Review. The IG report was considered against the backdrop of his actions and leadership in the grade of brigadier general. The results were the applicant acted honorably as a brigadier general, including during his deployed command, and he would retain his grade.

A May 7, 2025 memorandum from the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata explicitly advised the BCMR to “exercise broad discretion” in correcting the records of service members who “suffered harms” resulting from the department’s COVID mandates. 

The BCMR report on the investigation and Sage’s subsequent removal from the promotion list concluded that he “is the victim of an injustice.”

“The majority of the Board finds a preponderance of the evidence substantiates the applicant’s contentions,” the board stated.

Citing Tata’s memo, the board found that “discussion of the applicant’s views regarding COVID vaccines and mitigation policies during the investigation, and captured in the ROI, may have negatively influenced the outcome of the investigation, which then led to the adverse actions.”

The board then delivered what should have been a solid win for Sage — an overturn of the decision to deny his promotion and an extension to allow him more time to be reconsidered for the two-star general position:

The majority of the Board determined this is sufficient to justify granting the applicant’s request to overturn substantiation of the allegation in the SAF/IGS ROI, to remove associated adverse actions from the applicant’s records, and, given reinstatement to the previous selection board list is outside the AFBCMR’s authority, to instead provide the applicant the opportunity for a Special Selection Board (SSB) or supplemental consideration for promotion to major general. Additionally, extend the applicant’s current mandatory retirement date to accommodate an SSB or supplemental consideration for promotion to major general, and if selected for promotion, through the Presidential nomination and congressional confirmation processes. 

“The majority of the board concludes that the applicant is the victim of an injustice… Now those are two words that I never, ever want to use when I’m describing myself,” Sage told Breitbart News. “I am not a victim. I do not want to be a victim. And you know, it just amazes me that it came to the point where a board said, ‘Yeah, we’ve looked at the evidence.’ This is their word, not my word.”

Then, the other shoe dropped.

In an extremely rare, nearly unprecedented event, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Richard L. Anderson overruled the majority recommendation of the board. 

“It got overturned,” Sage recounted. “And then I figured, I have a month and a half left, so I hired this new attorney who’s fantastic… We just requested an extension to my retirement because we’re in the eleventh hour… and within a day and a half, they came back and denied it and said, nope, you’re gonna retire on December 31.”

It has been near radio-silence from his Air Force contacts since then. 

“They ignored our comments. They have failed to address it. I’ve emailed other people and said, ‘Hey, what do I do with this?’ And it’s just silence. They do not want to address the auto pen situation,” Sage said. 

Several congressmen have sent letters on his behalf, including Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Daniel Webster (R-FL), David Rouzer (R-NC), Derrick Van Orden (R-WI), Greg Murphy (R-NC), August Pfluger (R-TX), Eric Burlison (R-MO), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Morgan Luttrell (R-TX), and Cory Mills (R-FL).

Another 64 letters were sent to the Air Force from senior enlisted members up to four-star generals, vouching for Sage’s integrity.

Still, nothing. 

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced a series of department reforms on September 30, telling officers at Quantico, Virginia, “We are attacking and ending the walking on eggshells and zero defect command culture. A risk averse culture means officers execute not to lose, instead of to win.”

“I call it the no more walking on eggshells policy,” the secretary continued. “We are liberating commanders and NCOs. We are liberating you. We are overhauling an inspector general process, the IG, that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat.”

Despite Hegseth’s outlook on “complainers,” the complaints from a faulty witness whose other accusations against Sage were thrown out still remained, even after the board found that he had been targeted for his stances on COVID. The order to remove him from the promotion list, allegedly signed by Biden’s autopen, remained intact. 

Sage’s attorney, Davis Younts, illustrated how rare it is for a board decision to be overturned in the way that it was for his client. 

“I’ve been doing this since 2015 — been involved in well over 200 board cases,” he told Breitbart News. “This is the first time I’ve seen a decision from the board be overturned in a way that hurts the applicant.”

Speculating on the motives that bureaucrats within the DOW might have for targeting Sage, Younts said they are bent on “undermining the intent of the president and the intent of the secretary of war.”

“We could all agree, logically, that [COVID] was handled poorly by the Department of Defense under Biden, but those same people are still there, right? The same people are still there impacting policy,” he explained. 

“It cannot be overlooked how significant it was for the Air Force board of corrections to say in a written decision that the actions that were taken against General Sage were likely the result of his stance on COVID policies,” Younts continued. “I mean, that’s precedential and a very powerful decision for them… And for that to be overturned, and the way it was overturned, there’s no written decision. There’s no explanation.”

Sage’s wife, Jessica Sage, published an open letter to President Trump last week. In part, it reads:

Mr. President, you understand this fight. Despite your bold executive orders to restore common-sense and constitutional order to the military, deeply entrenched obstructionists and lawyers at the Pentagon still attempt to control the narratives—and therefore the decisions. Despite the valiant effort of your political appointees to carry out your vision and policies, many long-term staffers and lawyers still sit in positions of control at the Pentagon, and they are frustrating the implementation and intent of your executive orders and clear directives.

“My Christmas prayer is that somehow either President Trump or one of his trusted advisers will hear and see this,” Sage said, adding, “This decision is being watched closely by the hundreds or possibly thousands of COVID-persecuted Airmen who have yet to submit to the AF BCMR. Many have reached out to me to let me know they are watching very closely. My case was the canary in the coal mine. This sets a terrible precedent.”

Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.