Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is working to release records on COVID-19 intelligence and anomalous health incidents before her departure, according to an ODNI official.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is preparing to declassify records involving COVID-19 origins and Havana syndrome before she leaves the administration at the end of June, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
An official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told the outlet that Gabbard is actively working to release information tied to both the COVID-19 pandemic and anomalous health incidents, the government’s formal term for Havana syndrome.
“DNI Gabbard is actively working to declassify information about the COVID-19 pandemic and Anomalous Health Incidents before June 30,” the ODNI official told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Havana syndrome refers to a cluster of symptoms first reported in 2016 by a CIA officer stationed in Havana, Cuba. The symptoms have since been reported by American diplomats, intelligence officers and other U.S. personnel serving overseas.
Many affected officials have described hearing a loud noise or feeling intense pressure in the head and ears before experiencing severe headaches, brain fog, blurred vision, tinnitus, vertigo and other symptoms.
A declassified January 2025 intelligence assessment said five intelligence agencies assessed that it is “very unlikely” the incidents were caused by a foreign actor. One agency assessed that it is “likely” a foreign actor developed a novel weapon capable of causing some Havana syndrome symptoms, while another agency assessed the likelihood at roughly 50-50.
The COVID-19 materials expected to be considered for declassification are likely to draw renewed attention to long-running questions over the origin of the virus and what intelligence agencies knew about the possibility of a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China.
CIA whistleblower James Erdman III testified to the Senate in May that some members of the intelligence community suppressed evidence pointing to a lab accident in Wuhan.
Congress unanimously passed a law in 2023 requiring the declassification of intelligence related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a high-security laboratory with ties to the Chinese military that has been central to the debate over COVID-19’s origin.
In response to that law, then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines released a brief summary report during the Biden administration.
Erdman has said that he reviewed thousands of pages of material that Haines did not release.
The whistleblower also alleged that Anthony Fauci, whose institute at the National Institutes of Health directed funding to the Wuhan lab for coronavirus engineering research, connected the intelligence community with preferred scientists to advance the theory that the virus emerged naturally.
The planned declassifications could place new scrutiny on both the government’s handling of COVID-19 origin intelligence and the unresolved questions surrounding anomalous health incidents reported by U.S. personnel overseas.
Gabbard’s effort comes as she nears her departure from the DNI role, giving the intelligence community a narrow window to release additional information on two issues that have drawn years of public concern, congressional pressure and competing assessments inside the federal government.
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