The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), is investigating reports of a Biden-era weapons acquisition linked to “Havana Syndrome,” or Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI).
According to TriCare, AHIs are considered “rare conditions” first diagnosed in 2016 after employees of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, described “sudden unexplained head pressure, head or ear pain, dizziness, and other symptoms.”
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Garbarino wrote that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) “acquired a device in an undercover operation involving the expenditure of millions of dollars, some or all of which was allegedly sourced from funding provided by the Department of War (DoW).” The device is “capable of producing pulsed radio waves and containing Russian components, though it is supposedly not entirely Russian in origin.” The War Department then spent over a year testing the device.
The letter notes that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) previously presented an assessment that it was “very unlikely” that a foreign entity “used a novel weapon or prototype device to harm even a subset of the U.S. Government personnel.” Two agencies dissented from that majority view and instead believed there was a possibility that the weapon could have been developed by foreign actors.
Joining Garbarino in the letter include Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS), Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security Chairman Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence Chairman August Pfluger (R-TX), Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Chairman Josh Brecheen (R-OK), Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Chairman Andy Ogles (R-TN), and Subcommittee on Emergency Management and Technology Chairman Dale Strong (R-AL).
The January 2025 ODNI report on the subject states that the intelligence community “revisited the three lines of inquiry they considered in 2023, identifying judgments and confidence levels about each.” Reporting at the time “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,” the report says. “This shift consequently led two IC components to subtly change their overall judgment about whether a foreign actor might have played a role in a small number of events.”
