Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,
Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has retracted intelligence community reports on mysterious health problems known as Havana Syndrome, according to a memorandum released on June 11.
Gabbard found that the intelligence community assessments of the anomalous health incidents, released in 2023 and 2025, failed to meet the community’s analytic standards.
That included selectively excluding intelligence and evidence that did not support the conclusions and relying on an “ethically flawed medical study without noting methodological critiques,” Gabbard’s office said in the memo, sent to members of Congress.
The 2023 assessment concluded it was very unlikely that a foreign adversary was behind the incidents, which have impacted staffers in countries such as Cuba and China.
The updated assessment released in 2025 said most intelligence agencies still held it was very unlikely an enemy was responsible for the syndrome, but two components judged there was a “roughly even chance” that a foreign actor had used a novel weapon to target Americans, or had developed such a weapon.
Gabbard’s team said future assessments on the matter would adhere to “rigorous ethical standards incorporating all available intelligence sources and engaging a broad range of experts from agencies including the CIA.”
Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), the former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence CIA Subcommittee, who has criticized the government reports, praised the new development.
“The assessment was deliberately manufactured and used to discredit some of our nation’s bravest and impede their access to medical care. As was the case with other high-visibility intelligence assessments, it fell far short of analytic integrity standards,” Crawford wrote in a post on X.
He added that the retractions were “a glimmer of hope for our nation’s intelligence officers, service members, and diplomats stationed around the world who have defended this country in austere locations and subsequently had the nation they served turn its back on them.”
The subcommittee said in a 2024 report that it was increasingly likely that a foreign adversary was behind some number of the reported health problems, and that the 2023 assessment was developed “in a manner inconsistent with analytic integrity and thoroughness.”
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said in 2020 that the most likely mechanism behind the incidents was directed, pulsed radio-frequency energy, citing symptoms people have described, such as perceptual dizziness.
Government employees reporting the problems have had difficulty obtaining treatment, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in July 2024, recommending that the military develop written guidance and create a plan to rectify those difficulties.
Gabbard said last month that she is resigning from her position as the director of national security, citing her husband’s recent cancer diagnosis.
President Donald Trump said on June 11 that he is nominating Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as director of national intelligence.
The job oversees the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies.
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 14:20Graham Platner may have easily won Maine's Democratic Senate primary Tuesday, but his own party is already trying to figure out how to get rid of him. Democrats openly admit they cannot afford to lose this race if they want to retake the Senate, and Platner is already complicating their plans. Yet, the chaos involving Platner may have only just begun. Maine's Democratic establishment is clearly uneasy, and national Democrats are not hiding it.
AP Photo/Robert F. BukatyAccording to a report from NBC News, behind the scenes, party operatives are reportedly circulating negative polling on Platner, exploring whether funding threats might pressure him to withdraw, and testing public opinion with a text poll sent on primary day that asked voters about the allegations of his abusive and demeaning treatment of women.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is fully in Platner's corner, and he made his reasoning transparent. "There is no great secret that there is a strong division within the Democratic Party," Sanders said, criticizing the party establishment and praising Platner for challenging it. On the abuse allegations specifically, Sanders is choosing to take Platner's denials at face value.
"He denies it, she says something else, but what I do know is that there are people in the United States Senate right now who are not saints." He then pivoted to senators who voted for the Iraq War and tax cuts. Sanders is essentially arguing that Platner's personal failings are less disqualifying than the establishment's policy sins. Even Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who replaced Al Franken after his resignation over groping allegations, endorsed Platner without hesitation.
But the anxiety over Platner with the Democratic Party is very real. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) outright said she is "not comfortable" with Platner as the nominee. "I will not defend someone with that kind of history." Former Rep. Tom Malinowski argued that the steady stream of revelations says more than any single allegation. "If a man's past keeps surprising us, it's a safe bet that his present and future will continue to surprise us as well," he said, calling Platner a "moral dilemma" and warning Democrats against repeating what he described as the mistake of embracing candidates more defined by their anti-establishment appeal than their fitness for office.
"The easiest, most logical and most likely path to picking up seats is with Maine in our column," a senior Democratic strategist said. "It's a struggle to see how we get the majority without Maine." Platner's internal polling already shows his lead over five-term incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) shrinking to four points - this in a state that went for Kamala Harris by seven in 2024. He is underperforming the baseline in the most favorable environment Democrats have had in years.
But the Platner campaign is showing no signs of leaving voluntarily.
"The Democrats of Maine have made clear who their choice is," Platner adviser Rebecca Katz said. "And the rest of the party should honor that choice." That may be true. It may also be exactly what the Republican Party is counting on.
Under Maine law, Platner would need to voluntarily withdraw by July 13 for Democrats to replace him on the ballot. According to NBC News, a Republican strategist involved in Senate races said the GOP is deliberately withholding additional opposition research until the candidate-replacement deadline passes, so Democrats are unable to replace him the same way Joe Biden was pushed out of the 2024 presidential race after it became politically impossible to keep him on the ticket.
Once that deadline passes and Republicans unleash whatever opposition research they have been sitting on, the Democrats will have no options left, just a nominee they cannot fully defend in a race they cannot afford to lose.
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 14:00