In Case You Missed It – Shaheen to CNN: U.S. National Security is at Risk if We Don’t Hold Perpetrators of Sonic Attacks Accountable
SHAHEEN: “If we don’t hold those responsible accountable, then we can be sure it’s going to continue to happen. And that’s a national security risk to the United States and to our personnel.”
**Shaheen Spoke with CNN in an Exclusive Interview about Her Mission to Fight for Victims of Traumatic, Mysterious Sonic Attacks & Ensure Accountability Moving Forward**
(Washington, DC) – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) recently spoke with CNN in an exclusive interview on developments to uncover the source of targeted sonic attacks against U.S. personnel and their families. Shaheen described her years-long work to secure critical medical benefits for those suffering from serious health effects, as well as her commitment to ensuring victims are believed and perpetrators are held accountable. CNN’s Kylie Atwood has the full story on these traumatic attacks here.
CNN’s story comes on the heels of a classified assessment that revealed the Trump administration bungled its initial response to these incidents, and following action from the Biden administration to improve coordination and stop these attacks by elevating a senior level official to head the Health Incidents Response Task Force.
Senator Shaheen has stood by government employees and their families who’ve suffered from these mysterious injuries, and leads efforts in Congress to provide them critical health benefits. In the fiscal year (FY) 2021 National Defense Authorization Act that recently became law, Shaheen successfully included language to expand a provision in law that she wrote last year to provide long-term, emergency care benefits to all U.S. Government employees and their dependents who were mysteriously injured while working in China and Cuba. Shaheen’s measure to amend the law followed her letter with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) in May, calling on the administration to interpret the law as intended by Congress.
On the TODAY Show last year, Shaheen responded to the findings of a National Academy of Sciences report on these injuries and underscored the urgent need to take action to address these attacks that have targeted American public servants and their families. Despite Shaheen’s calls for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to come before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to address what the Trump administration was doing to uncover the source of these attacks and protect American public servants, Pompeo never appeared. Pompeo also never responded to bipartisan calls in the Senate led by Shaheen to detail how the Trump administration would respond to the findings of the NAS report. Shaheen is a cosponsor of Senator Collins’ legislation that would authorize additional compensation for affected individuals. During Secretary of State Blinken’s confirmation hearing, Shaheen reiterated that uncovering the causation of these attacks and assisting those who’ve been injured must be top priorities for the Biden administration.
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