The State Department Inflicted a Concussion upon Me

Blinken wouldn't take my questions, but he did lie to me.... My "hard pass" was confiscated, but was just re-issued.

I have not written much lately largely because I’ve been told by doctors to take it easy and to minimize time in front of computer screens.

A week after I attempted to question Blinken at his last news conference, at the urging of my primary care physician, I went to the ER at George Washington University Hospital and I was diagnosed with a concussion from the incident.

The day after that, I went to the State Department to see if my “hard pass” card still worked to get me back in. It didn’t and it was confiscated from me.

I am currently talking with lawyers and others about how to address the heinous actions of the State Department. But one aspect seems to have been addressed: the State Department last week reissued my “hard pass”. I can certainly speculate, but I have no information about why.

There’s lots more to say about the incident. Most of the damage to me was not inflicted in the conference room, but outside it, in the hallways of the State Department. The agent in charge at the end of the process refused to give his name, see video below. And even though Blinken didn’t take my questions, he still did lie to me. I give some more details below as best as I’m able at the present time.

Symptoms from a concussion — including headaches and nausea (which become worse as I sit before a computer screen), extreme fatigue, cognitive issues, rashes and more — I’ve learned can take time to manifest and of course to overcome.

I want to thank all those who stood up for the First Amendment during this attack, which I view as part of a wider attack to enable the US government’s backing of imperial Israel’s genocide and other nefarious policies.

People of conscience, I believe, should use what is available to us as much as possible. Doing so will likely produce a violent response from the system. Imperial Israel repeatedly escalated its attacks on Gaza as South Africa went to the ICJ in its Genocide Convention case. Such demented dynamics cannot dissuade us from further actions. Rather, that will enable more people to see its oppression and criminality more clearly and compel more and more to understand more deeply — and to act more forcefully.

My case has some resemblance to AP’s case regarding viewpoint discrimination. But objections to Trump administration actions is meaningless if it is just a partisan talking point and doesn’t address the much deeper malady confronting a free press from bipartisan imperial structures.

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On my way home from the State Department after I was carried out, I spoke by phone with an experienced D.C. area activist who urged me to immediately see a doctor. I shrugged it off with an “OK, I’ll try to do that soon.”

That night, I began to feel a soreness in my shoulders. But the following day, I had pain shooting down my left arm and my left side. I went to a nearby urgent care clinic. As I described why I was there, the doctor said “you’re that guy!” and took off his mask and shook my hand.

He prescribed some meds and told me to take it easy. I took the meds but found it hard to take it easy. I also dropped a message to my primary care doctor at George Washington University. During the following week, he asked more questions and upon seeing my answers, he told me I should go to the ER immediately, as it sounded to him that I had a concussion. I went there exactly a week after being attacked at the State Department and they diagnosed me with a concussion and PTSD.

They told me to take it easy and to stay away from screens. They said it was fine to travel, so I went to Cuba for two weeks, as I’d been invited to talk about Gaza at a conference there. I hope to be writing about Cuba and my trip by and by.

Just before I went to Cuba, I tried to get into the State Department. I tried to use my “hard pass” to get into the building as I had the last couple of years. It didn’t work and Diplomatic Security confiscated my card.

Most of the physical damage done to me on Jan. 16 was done after I was carried out of the briefing room and was not videoed so far as I know. I was roughly handcuffed and searched, their hands grabbing everything from my pockets. I objected to the Secret Service agent overseeing this, I just wanted to get out of the building at that point and it was ridiculous for them to pretend I posed a threat. Then I was taken the long way out of the building. This afforded the “security” people an opportunity to repeatedly shove my shoulders, forcing my head to bob back and forth, which is probably when most of the physical damage was done to me.

I did not attempt to resist. As we were approaching the exit of the building, I looked at the name tag of the Secret Service agent who was in charge. He hid his name tag. When we finally got outside and they handed me my belongings, I asked him for his name and he refused to give it. I took his photo and another journalist by this time had come out and videoed that:

Note that Blinken said to Max Blumenthal: “I’m happy to address your questions when we get to questions.” This was an obvious lie, as Blinken had no intention of taking Max’s questions. Miller had been avoiding Max as he had been avoiding me, so there was no way that Blinken would call on him. Later Blinken said in response to my attempt to ask questions: “Everyone will have an opportunity to ask questions in just a minute.” An even more ridiculous lie. I immediately shot back: “Matt Miller has explicitly told me he will not answer my questions.”

There’s a pattern with this, see my piece “I wasn’t called on at the State Department briefing today. But I still got lied to...” which recounts an interaction with Miller, and there was another with Patel.

Some people — some out of naiveté, some out of maliciousness — have asked why I didn’t wait until after Blinken had finished his opening remarks to say anything. The fact is, I was just lodging quick little questions during that period to get the substance of them on the table. The event was billed as a news conference, not a speech. It was in fact another speech with a few managed questions thrown in. If I waited, anything I’d say may well have been barely audible in the course of them calling on people. Things escalated because of Blinken’s lies and because the State Department created this new construct, a woman (I don’t know her name) who came over to berate me for speaking out of turn, as if Blinken were a professor and not a propagandist. As if I were an unquestioning student and not an independent journalist.

And at Blinken’s event, they didn’t even end up taking a question from Said Arikat, a Palestinian journalist who is ever so respectful of the decorum of the State Department and almost always gets a question in at the briefings by Miller.

In fact, Said Arikat told me during an interview that the day of Miller's last briefing (which was the day before Blinken spoke, and an instance of me trying to get a question in at the end) he bumped into Miller and urged him to take my questions. Miller told him he had no intention of doing so. See my interview with Said Arikat and Bassam Haddad from January. (This was before I was diagnosed with a concussion, as was my interview with Glenn Greenwald and others. It’s possible that Miller not calling on Said Arikat during Blinken’s appearance was in part retaliation for him urging Miller to call on me, but I have no idea.)

Last week, I went to the State Department after I got a call from Adrien Diaz who called and told me they wanted to give me a new hard pass. I have no information about why this happened. Upon arriving, they sprung a three page letter on me effectively demanding that I conform my actions to their wishes and giving a remarkably skewed rendition of my interactions with the State Department. As I objected to them putting this before me, they claimed they had already mailed it to me certified mail. I said that seemed rather implausible since I hadn’t signed for any such letter. They then claimed it wasn’t sent certified; I still haven’t gotten it by mail. I took the letter, noting in broad terms my objections to its content. I may give a detailed response to this, and I expect to write more on this and other issues as best as I’m able given current circumstances in the coming weeks and months as I deal with the damage inflicted on me, not only by the State Department’s violations of the First Amendment, but physical damage to me.

The notion that the State Department can inflict a concussion on a journalist for trying to ask tough questions of a Secretary of State engaging in the commission of a genocide puts an iron fist on the shoulder of any journalist attempting to raise their hand or their voice.