The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a memo Thursday saying Gabbard had rescinded the two Intelligence Community Assessments — one published in 2023 and another in 2025 — that had concluded it was unlikely a foreign adversary was responsible for the symptoms reported by U.S. personnel. The memo said the reports “included selective exclusion of intelligence and evidence that did not support the analytic conclusions.”
The 2023 assessment found no credible evidence that any foreign adversary was using a weapon or device to cause the reported injuries, instead attributing the symptoms to a combination of pre-existing medical conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors. The 2025 report indicated that most of the U.S. intelligence community still considered foreign involvement very unlikely, but noted that two agencies assessed a “roughly even chance” that U.S. adversaries had been developing a novel weapon capable of causing the illness.
The ODNI memo also criticized the medical study underlying the assessments as “ethically flawed” and said intelligence collection had been limited so the reports could maintain a predetermined analytic position. Future assessments, the memo added, “will adhere to rigorous ethical standards, incorporating all available intelligence sources and engaging a broad range of experts” from across agencies.
Rep. Rick Crawford (R., Ark.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a statement calling the declassified reports “flawed, fraudulent, and manufactured Intelligence Community Assessments” that “have caused significant harm to some of our nation’s bravest.” In 2024, Crawford released a report that said it “appears increasingly likely” a foreign adversary was behind at least some Havana Syndrome episodes.
The rescission is among the last actions Gabbard is expected to take as director of national intelligence. She resigned last month, saying she wanted to support her husband, who was diagnosed with cancer, and is scheduled to leave her position next week. President Trump announced Thursday he will nominate Jay Clayton, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to lead the intelligence agency.
Havana Syndrome first drew public attention in 2016 when State Department personnel stationed in Cuba reported sudden, unexplained symptoms. Since then, more than 1,500 U.S. government employees have reported experiencing dizziness, headache, fatigue, nausea, anxiety, cognitive difficulties, and memory loss of varying severity. Cases have been documented in countries including China, Russia, Poland, Serbia, India, Colombia, and France. Some affected diplomats and intelligence officers have left active service because of complications from the condition.
The rescinded reports had cast doubt on the theory that foreign adversaries were developing directed-energy weapons to target American personnel. The reversal reopens the possibility that such a weapon exists in the intelligence community’s official assessment, though the ODNI memo did not itself make any determination about foreign involvement.