A victim of the so-called “Havana Syndrome” is calling on Congress to investigate the State Department for whistleblower retaliation, alleging he’s being forced out of his diplomatic post in Helsinki after asking to brief lawmakers about the mysterious illness.
Mark Lenzi, a senior Foreign Service officer who was medically evacuated from China in 2018 and later diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries, provided documents and email communications to Punchbowl News showing he was asked to sign a pre-drafted cable last week requesting a “curtailment of tour of duty” for “personal reasons.”
Lenzi has refused to send the cable. Instead, Lenzi has asked the House Foreign Affairs Committee as well as the office of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) — who will take over as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next year — to investigate the State Department for alleged retaliation.
The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the panel “takes whistleblower complaints very seriously and is currently looking into Mr. Lenzi’s case.” A spokesperson for Shaheen said the senator’s office has “been in touch with Mark to provide him with resources available to State employees to help navigate through this situation.”
Lenzi says the State Department is trying to further silence him by pushing him out of his position at the U.S. embassy in Helsinki in direct response to an op-ed he wrote in September. That’s despite the fact that prominent national security attorney Mark Zaid helped Lenzi clear the op-ed with the State Department before it was published.
The Office of Special Counsel’s Investigation and Prosecution Division has already opened a probe into the matter. The federal government has paid out more than $1 million to Lenzi and his family, including under the 2021 HAVANA Act, which established a new but limited compensation program for victims.
Zooming out: Lenzi has been outspoken for several years now about what he said is the U.S. government’s effort to suppress the true cause of “anomalous health incidents.” That’s the term the intelligence community uses to describe Havana Syndrome.
A 60 Minutes investigation earlier this year uncovered new evidence to support what Lenzi has long argued — that the Russian government carried out directed-energy attacks on U.S. diplomats stationed abroad.
“The American people have a right to know which country caused the injuries for which their tax dollars have compensated us,” Lenzi wrote in the op-ed. “[L]et me brief members of the intelligence and foreign affairs committees in the Capitol SCIF on classified information directly relating to the Russian pulsed microwave attacks that injured me, my family and scores of my U.S. government colleagues.”
Lenzi is confident that with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) likely to be confirmed as secretary of state, the issue will be prioritized.
As the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Republican, Rubio has been outspoken about Havana Syndrome and pushed the intelligence community to be more forthcoming. Rubio will “bring accountability” to the department, Lenzi said.
“My goal is to work with Congress on whistleblower retaliation legislation for the Department of State,” Lenzi told us. “Morale is extremely low at the State Department right now because of a lack of accountability.”
