Most spy chiefs agree: Biden-era intel assessment on Havana Syndrome should be retracted

The leaders of key U.S. intelligence agencies agreed on Thursday that a Biden-era intelligence community assessment on anomalous health incidents — also dubbed “Havana Syndrome” should be retracted after the 2023 report largely dismissed the possibility of foreign involvement in the mysterious ailments.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency acting director Lieutenant General William Hartman, and Defense Intelligence Agency director Lieutenant General James Adams all testified on Thursday before the House Intelligence Committee that they believed the Biden-era ICA on the anomalous health incidents — or AHIs — should be retracted. CIA Director John Ratcliffe also said he would defer to Gabbard on the issue.

The U.S. government has been investigating the unusual symptoms reported among its personnel serving abroad. If a foreign adversary is behind the AHIs, speculation has centered on Russia as the most likely culprit, along with China and Cuba as possible as well. 

Symptoms tied to alleged AHIs have included sound or pressure in one ear or on one side of the head and nearly simultaneous signs such as vertigo, the loss of balance, headaches, ear pain, and sometimes alleged traumatic brain injuries.

Not the Trump administration’s first disavowal of Democrat-led intelligence assessments

The Biden intelligence community in 2023 released an intelligence community assessment — or ICA — finding that it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary such as Russia was behind Havana Syndrome.

Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., the chairman of the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee, has long been critical of the U.S. intelligence community’s mishandling of its investigation into AHIs, saying the IC had engaged in a cover-up.

The likely upcoming retraction of the Biden-era ICA on Havana Syndrome would not be the Trump administration’s first disavowal of Democrat-led intelligence assessments.

Ratcliffe released a "lessons learned" review in July 2025 focused on the January 2017 ICA on alleged Russian meddling during the 2016 election. That review sharply criticized former CIA Director John Brennan for allegedly joining with anti-Trump forces in the FBI in allegedly pushing to include British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s baseless anti-Trump dossier in the assessment. In the review, the CIA also critiqued the “high confidence” assessment by the FBI and the CIA that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had “aspired” to help President Donald Trump win in 2016.

And in February, the CIA announced that it was retracting or revising nineteen different intelligence reports, dating from 2015 through 2023 — spanning the Obama administration, the first Trump presidency, and the Biden administration. The politicized assessments — many of them focused on DEI-related issues — included pronouncements by the CIA about white women, motherhood, violent extremism, LGBT issues, abortion, and others well beyond the remit of the agency's mission.

“Yes”: Top IC leaders in agreement that Biden-era ICA needs to be tossed out

Early this year, Crawford called upon the spy agencies to retract the “deeply flawed” 2023 ICA. With the spy agency leaders in front of him on Thursday, he asked if they agreed with him, saying “The intelligence community assessment on AHIs was deeply flawed, and I’ve called for its recall immediately for a fresh start […] I’d like to get a yes or no answer from each of you on whether you agree this ICA should be retracted.”

“Yes,” Gabbard, Patel, Hartman, and Adams all said.

“For the ICA, I understand that Director Gabbard is reviewing that, and I’ve deferred all AHI investigations to her review,” Ratcliffe also said. “So, if in her judgment that is something that should be retracted, then I would agree with that.”

Crawford had lamented the IC’s “mishandling” of its assessment on AHIs and its “mistreatment of survivors” during his opening remarks on Thursday.

“I would first like to reiterate the committee’s commitment to releasing additional declassified information,” Crawford said.

The intelligence committee chairman added: “Put simply, it’s my clear opinion that individuals in the intelligence community were involved in a cover-up, manipulating intelligence processes in a breach of Intelligence Community Directive 203 to provide a desired outcome rather than a forthright analysis to inform decisionmakers. Our investigation, the vast majority of which remains appropriately classified, continues to show this intelligence community assessment was constructed upon flawed analytic tradecraft.”

“ICAs carry a great deal of weight. … The AHI ICA and its follow-on updates caused real serious harm to some of our nation’s bravest. Last month, I called for its immediate recall, and I reiterate my position today,” he added.

Gabbard nodded in agreement that ODNI’s review would be comprehensive and complete, and that she was committed to sharing her findings with the American public. Ratcliffe then nodded in agreement that the CIA supports the ODNI review and looks forward to that report. Crawford called for that review to be made public as well.

Ratcliffe: “There are disparate opinions across the IC"

The spy agency leaders had also appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., asked Ratcliffe during the hearing, “Is there anything you can share in this unclassified setting to assure the people of the State Department and your agency that this is not something that is being ignored?”

“There are disparate opinions across the IC about what the cause of these AHIs may or may not be… and the question of whether or not they could be the result of a directed energy weapon from a foreign adversary,” the CIA director said.

Ratcliffe added: “Having been the DNI — understanding the role of the DNI is to coordinate across the IC when there are disparate opinions among agencies. Director Gabbard and I had a conversation where she agreed that she would undertake a comprehensive review of that issue across the IC to make sure it is getting the attention it deserves. And I know that she has undertaken that and will be able to brief you in further detail in a classified session.”

Former DNI Avril Haines: “Very unlikely” a foreign power behind Havana Syndrome

The ODNI under then-DNI Avril Haines, released an annual threat assessment in February 2023 which stated that “IC agencies assess with varying levels of confidence that most reported health incidents can be explained by medical conditions, or environmental or technical factors, and that it is unlikely that a foreign actor — including Russia — is conducting a sustained, worldwide campaign involving hundreds of incidents without detection.”

ODNI’s March 2023 report on AHIs also argued that “most IC agencies have concluded that it is ‘very unlikely’ a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported AHIs. IC agencies have varying confidence levels, with two agencies at moderate-to-high confidence while three are at moderate confidence. Two agencies judge it is ‘unlikely’ an adversary was responsible for AHIs and they do so with low confidence based on collection gaps and their review of the same evidence.”

The Biden-led NIH released studies in March 2024 and claimed that they had “found no significant evidence of MRI-detectable brain injury, nor differences in most clinical measures compared to controls, among a group of federal employees who experienced anomalous health incidents.”

But NIH announced in August 2024 that it had suspended the aforementioned studies over concerns about alleged coercion and the possible lack of informed consent. "In March 2024, the National Institutes of Health initiated an investigation in response to concerns from participants who were evaluated as part of a study on anomalous health incidents,” NIH told MedPage Today in 2024. 

"The investigation was conducted by the NIH Office of Intramural Research and the NIH Research Compliance Review Committee, an institutional review board within the NIH. Given the role of voluntary consent as a fundamental pillar of the ethical conduct of research, NIH has stopped the study out of an abundance of caution."

Crawford argues a foreign adversary is likely behind at least some AHIs

Crawford’s subcommittee took aim at the Biden ODNI's conclusions on AHIs.

“The Subcommittee found that the process resulting in the ICA, titled ‘Updated Assessment on Anomalous Health Incidents,’ which is often used to portray a consensus discounting foreign adversary involvement in AHIs, lacked analytic integrity and was highly irregular in its formulation,” Crawford’s report contended in 2024. 

“The Subcommittee’s investigation has uncovered information illustrative of problems with the ICA’s creation, review, and release. Some of these problems may include a rush to convey a consensus amongst elements of the IC in an effort to control the narrative with the American public, policymakers, foreign partners and adversaries, and IC employees.”

“It appears increasingly likely, and the chairman is convinced that a foreign adversary is responsible for some portion of reported AHIs,” Crawford’s December 2024 report argued.

The report added: “The Committee has direct evidence the Intelligence Community Assessment on AHIs was developed in a manner inconsistent with analytic integrity and thoroughness. The assessment is sufficiently problematic as to hinder the Subcommittee’s trust in the Intelligence Community’s process and conclusions.”

Crawford’s subcommittee contended at the end of 2024 that “the Intelligence Community tried to impede the CIA Subcommittee’s investigation at every turn” and that “the conclusions published by the DNI in the unclassified Intelligence Community Assessment on AHIs are dubious at best and misleading at worst.”

“The mishandling of the IC’s response to AHIs has hampered the IC’s ability to collect against developing threats, delayed development of potential mitigations, and harmed the credibility the IC has with its workforce,” the Crawford-led interim report found. “In addition, the Subcommittee believes the Biden Administration’s failure to adequately prioritize collection on this threat has likely resulted in lost opportunities.”

The late 2024 report seemed to jolt Biden's intelligence community leaders into opening the door to the possibility that a foreign foe could indeed be behind the AHIs.

Biden’s IC does quiet walk back in final days of his term

The ODNI said in a January 2025 report that “most of the IC” judged that it was “very unlikely” that a “foreign actor” was responsible for Havana Syndrome and that it was “very unlikely” that a “foreign actor has used a novel weapon or prototype device” to harm U.S. government personnel.

But the ODNI also revealed that “one IC component judges there is a ‘roughly even chance’ a foreign actor has used a novel weapon or prototype device to harm a small, undetermined subset of the USG personnel or dependents who reported medical symptoms or sensory phenomena as AHIs” while “another IC component judges there is a ‘roughly even chance’ a foreign actor has developed a novel weapon or prototype device that could have harmed a small, undetermined subset of the USG personnel or dependents who reported medical symptoms or sensory phenomena as AHIs” — although it did not believe such a weapon or device had actually been used.

The Haines-led ODNI said that “new reporting led two components to shift their assessments about whether a foreign actor has a capability that could cause biological effects consistent with some of the symptoms reported as possible AHIs” and that “these shifts are based on reporting they evaluate to indicate that foreign actors are making progress in scientific research and weapons development.”

Pulsed electromagnetic energy in the radiofrequency range a possibility

A spokesperson for the Biden-led National Security Council also said in early January 2025 that “we will be briefing the incoming Administration on the full scope of ongoing work that should continue, as well as additional areas of focus recommended by the Intelligence Community experts panel, which found that a subset of anomalous health incidents cannot be easily explained by known environmental or medical conditions and that pulsed electromagnetic or acoustic energy remains a plausible explanation in certain cases.”

The experts panel cited by the Biden NSC, according to a document declassified in 2022, found that “pulsed electromagnetic energy, particularly in the radiofrequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics, although information gaps exist” and that “ultrasound also plausibly explains the core characteristics, but only in close-access scenarios and with information gaps.”

The National Academies of Sciences released a report in 2020 considering possible sources of the illness, concluding that 40 diplomats in Havana and a dozen in China suffered symptoms “consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed, radiofrequency energy” and called that the “most plausible” explanation for many cases.

Other scientists and science writers have cast doubt on the energy weapon explanation, saying it is not supported by scientific evidence and would be implausible. A declassified but heavily redacted 2018 report by the JASON scientific group, which was advising the State Department, also cast doubt on the energy weapon explanation.

Gabbard vows transparency during her term at ODNI

During her Senate confirmation hearing in late January 2025, Gabbard told senators that “it has been deeply concerning throughout this period, from the first time this was discovered so long ago to where we are today, that the intelligence community still has failed to identify the source and the cause of Havana Syndrome, as it is commonly known, even as so many people who are in service are suffering the consequences of it. I look forward, if confirmed as director of national intelligence, to addressing this.”

Gabbard said that, if confirmed as DNI, she was committed to “getting to the truth behind how and why this has occurred.”

The GOP-led House Oversight Committee in February 2025 had also announced “an investigation into the Biden Administration’s inadequate measures to provide legally required care for federal civilian employees suffering from Havana Syndrome and other anomalous health incidents.”

The ODNI under Gabbard announced the Director’s Initiatives Group in April 2025, with ODNI saying the initiative was already “reviewing documents for potential declassification — including information related to […] Anomalous Health Incidents.”

Crawford sends criminal referral on mishandling of Havana Syndrome

Crawford’s frustration with the IC’s response to oversight efforts related to AHIs was on display in September 2025, when Crawford told fellow House Intelligence members during a mark-up on the Intelligence Authorization Act that he supported the removal of Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse over the DIA chief’s handling of AHIs. Kruse led the DIA from February 2024 to August 22, 2025.

In the early September meeting of HPSCI, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., called Kruse “one of the most kind of able people that I have encountered in this committee” and argued that “he was dismissed without explanation.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had removed Kruse in August 2025 in the wake of the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities and the leaking of a preliminary battle damage assessment by DIA.

“I can tell you that I probably had occasion to interact with General Kruse more than anybody on this committee in the course of the investigation that I was conducting in the last Congress,” Crawford said during the intelligence panel’s mark-up meeting earlier that month. “And I can tell you that I recommended then, and I recommended to this president that he be removed for cause. I am happy to discuss with any of you maybe under other circumstances, but his treatment of AHI victims to me was sufficient cause to have him removed from that position.”

The GOP-led House Intelligence Committee revealed it had sent criminal referrals to the Trump Justice Department in September related to the congressional panel’s scrutiny of the federal government’s alleged mishandling of AHIs.

A spokesperson for the committee who declined to be named due to the sensitivities surrounding the HPSCI investigation, told Just the News in September that the committee’s ongoing inquiry into AHIs has scrutinized the response by the intelligence community (IC) and the National Institutes of Health and had identified a number of potentially illegal actions — which were referred to the Justice Department that month. The spokesperson did not identify the exact target of the criminal referral.

The spokesperson said additional criminal referrals might still be sent to the DOJ, particularly relating to the committee’s review of the IC’s potential obstruction of the House committee’s inquiry into Havana Syndrome.

“I stand by my original statements from last year that the 2023 ICA was developed in a manner inconsistent with analytic integrity standards, and I strongly encourage my colleagues in the Executive Branch and the IC to reassess the ICA,” Crawford said in December of last year.

The House chairman upped the ante in January of this year

“I continue to stand by my original statements that the intelligence community assessment used to discredit these individuals and impede their medical care was developed in a manner inconsistent with analytic integrity standards,” Crawford said. “I am now calling for its immediate recall.”

It remains to be seen whether the Havana Syndrome mystery will be fully unraveled, but the shift in tone at the top of the IC is palpable, the threat of criminal referrals may help reveal more details, and the now near-certain retraction of the Biden-era assessment may give way to fuller transparency.