The Archive

IN THIS EDITION

Punch Power Matrix

‘Havana Syndrome’ victim asks Congress to probe State Dept. for retaliation

The Vault: Treasury urging lawmakers to free up IRS money

Waters unveils AI disclosure bill for finserv

News: Budd leads another disaster relief push

THE TOP

Punch Power Matrix

Happy Wednesday morning.

Programming note: This is our last edition of the week. We’ll be back Monday with our normal three-editions-a-day schedule.

We’re very thankful for much in this wild world. We’re incredibly thankful we get to do this job every day. And we’re very thankful to all of our readers in the Punchbowl News community. And our sources, who put up with a barrage of questions and inquiries at all hours of the day and night.

Happy Thanksgiving. We’ll catch you on Dec. 2 for the lame-duck session.

Also: The House’s Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump has its final hearing on Dec. 5. The hearing is titled: “Secret Service Security Failures and the Attempts to Assassinate President-Elect Donald J. Trump.”

The task force must issue its final report by Dec. 13.

Finally: Democratic challenger Adam Gray has taken a 182-vote lead over GOP incumbent John Duarte in California’s 13th District (Yes, they’re still counting and won’t be finished today).

If Gray were to win — and it’s far from over — House Republicans would hold 220 seats to 215 for Democrats heading into the next Congress. Then factor in the resignation of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and the looming departures of GOP Reps. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) for Trump administration posts, the margin would be down to 217-215 for several months. That’s a one-vote margin until at least early April when special elections can be held. That will be a huge challenge, to say the least, for Speaker Mike Johnson and House GOP leaders.

— Max Cohen, Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

Want to make sure your whole office has the full Punchbowl News experience? We have team plans available for companies, organizations, classes, Capitol Hill offices and more. Fill out this form and find out if your team is eligible for a discount.

WASHINGTON X THE WORLD

‘Havana Syndrome’ victim asks Congress to probe State Dept. for retaliation

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.”

— Andrew Desiderio

DEPT. OF TRANSPARENCY

Waters unveils AI disclosure bill for finserv

News: Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, will release a bill today aimed at improving the transparency of artificial intelligence products used in financial services.

The bill, which you can read here, would direct several federal regulators to study the use and origins of AI products being used by financial firms. Those agencies include the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The interagency study required by Waters’ bill would ask the regulators to establish recommendations for new standards and definitions for AI policy.

Another major focus is establishing how regulators and firms could “label” the use of AI products, including the origin of data used to train financial services AI and assessing how that data is used.

After that study is published, Waters’ bill would direct each agency to determine whether its existing authorities require regulated firms to submit additional information to the government about how AI models are being trained. That could include “the delineation and ratios of synthetic versus genuine data in the training of artificial intelligence models” and their data sources, according to the bill text.

Waters has been working with House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) for some time on AI legislation, which started with an AI task force launched before the Covid-19 pandemic. This particular bill doesn’t have bipartisan support yet, but we don’t think it’s the last piece of AI-in-banking legislation we’ll see before the end of the 118th Congress.

Waters’ legislation plays into one of Democrats’ longest-running concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in the financial services world — the fear that AI trained on bad, biased or outdated data could make it easier for lenders to make bad lending decisions at scale and lock underprivileged Americans out of the financial system.

We’re not optimistic that this bill can pass during the remainder of the lame-duck session — there’s just not a lot of time left on the calendar — but lawmakers will convene next week to discuss it and other bills at a “Future of Finance” hearing scheduled for Dec. 4.

— Brendan Pedersen

DISASTER RELIEF

News: Budd leads another disaster relief push

News: Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) is leading a bipartisan letter that calls on congressional leadership to hold a vote on the disaster aid supplemental next week.

Last week, the Office of Management and Budget sent a $98 billion-plus supplemental disaster request to Congress. While Budd and a group of Senate colleagues are calling the move “an important first step,” they’re demanding immediate action from House and Senate leaders.

“Our constituents need immediate help as they work to rebuild their homes and communities. We have delayed too long already,” the senators wrote on Tuesday. “We stand ready to pass a supplemental disaster relief bill the first week of December.”

Joining Budd in the effort are Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.). The bipartisan group all represent states hard hit by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Budd, a first-term GOP senator, has become a prominent voice demanding disaster relief. We scooped an effort Budd marshaled earlier this month to pressure the Biden administration to hurry up with sending its supplemental request to the Hill.

— Max Cohen

MOMENTS

CLIPS