Sam Husseini was dragged out by armed guards after trying to ask a question about Gaza
Independent journalist Sam Husseini was dragged away from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s final press briefing after trying to ask a question about the Gaza ceasefire. Blinken claimed that the past four years have seen successful diplomacy, including the truce, even though both Israel and Hamas gave President-elect Donald Trump the credit for the deal.
In a video posted by Ryan Grim of DropSite News, several uniformed Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) officers can be seen approaching Husseini, who is seated in the briefing room.
“Get your hands off me!” Husseini cried out as the guards seized him. “Answer my damn question.”
“You pontificate about a free press!” he called out. “I am asking questions after being told by [State Department spokesman] Matt Miller that he will not answer my questions.”
Every other journalist in the room watched and did nothing. America the free world!
Sam Husseini forcibly removed from the briefing room after interrupting Blinken's final press conference. pic.twitter.com/6ff6Qz1WXV
Blinken responded that journalists had to “respect the process” and that he would take questions after he was done with his speech.
“Everybody from Amnesty International to the ICJ [International Court of Justice] is saying that Israel is doing genocide and extermination and you’re telling me to respect the process?” Husseini yelled back.
“Criminal! Why are you not in The Hague?” he called out repeatedly, as DSS officers carried him out of the briefing room.
“I tried to ask a series of questions. Was carried out and handcuffed. Completely excessive force,” Husseini said on X a short while after the incident.
Husseini later wrote that he had been “seriously manhandled” for trying to ask serious questions that the State Department did not want to answer. Among them was whether the US knew about the “Hannibal Directive,” a controversial doctrine allowing the Israeli military to kill service members or civilians rather than allow them to be taken captive.
Journalist Ryan Grim of DropSite News posted that a State Department staffer had tried to remove Husseini after he asked that question, and called armed security after he refused to leave.
Husseini said he also wanted to ask Blinken about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, Israeli nuclear weapons, and whether the Geneva Conventions applied to Gaza.
In another incident at the same briefing, Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal accused Blinken of helping “destroy our religion, Judaism, by associating it with fascism” and pointed out that the secretary of state’s father-in-law and grandfather were lobbyists for Israel.
“Why did you sacrifice the rules-based order on the mantle of your commitment to Zionism?” Blumenthal shouted, as he was taken away by State Department staffers. “Why did you allow the Holocaust of our time to happen? How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?”