# Max Blumenthal Max Blumenthal (b. Dec. 18, 1977, in Boston) is the founder and editor-in-chief of [[The Grayzone]], a website that attacks U.S. foreign policy and regularly takes the side of the governments Washington opposes. He is the son of Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime aide to [[Bill Clinton]] and [[Hillary Clinton]], and spent the first half of his career as a well-regarded reporter on the American right for mainstream liberal outlets. ## The first career After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, Blumenthal wrote for The Nation, The Daily Beast, AlterNet and Media Matters. His first book, *Republican Gomorrah* (2009), was a bestselling account of the Christian right's hold on the Republican Party. *Goliath* (2013) and *The 51 Day War* (2015) turned to [[Israel]] and Gaza and made him one of the most prominent American critics of Israeli policy. On Syria he began as a critic of the government. In June 2012 he resigned from the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar in protest at its support for [[Bashar al-Assad]]. ## The turn In December 2015 Blumenthal attended the tenth-anniversary gala of the Russian state network [[RT]] in Moscow, an event [[Vladimir Putin]] also attended. He founded The Grayzone within weeks. From then on his coverage of the [[Syrian Civil War]] disputed evidence of government atrocities, and the site extended the same approach to Venezuela, Nicaragua, China and Russia. A fourth book, *The Management of Savagery* (2019), argued that U.S. interventions had fostered jihadist movements. Blumenthal has been a regular guest on RT and defended the network on [[Tucker Carlson]]'s Fox News program in 2017. He spoke at the left-right Rage Against the War Machine rally in Washington in February 2023 alongside [[Jimmy Dore]] and [[Ron Paul]]. His former deputy [[Ben Norton]] accused him that year of steering the site toward [[Donald Trump]]'s supporters, a charge Blumenthal rejected. He is married to the Grayzone writer Anya Parampil. ## The 2026 phone seizure In July 2026 Blumenthal travelled to [[Iran]] on a press visa to cover the funeral of [[Ali Khamenei]]. When he landed at Washington Dulles on July 10, [[CBP]] officers held him for about two and a half hours, questioned him about his reporting and funding, and took his two phones after he refused to unlock them. The activist [[Laura Loomer]] had publicly urged the government to detain him before he landed, and claimed credit afterward. Represented by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, he filed an emergency motion on July 16, and the phones were returned the next day. Judge [[Leonie Brinkema]] heard the matter on July 29 and ordered the government to account for what it had done with the devices. On Aug. 17 he filed a broader suit, Blumenthal v. Mullin, naming Homeland Security Secretary [[Markwayne Mullin]] and alleging violations of the [[First Amendment]] and [[Fourth Amendment]]. The Committee to Protect Journalists and the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker both logged the stop as a press-freedom incident. The agency said travel to a country designated a state sponsor of terrorism can draw extra inspection. ## Why it's on the map Blumenthal is the hardest case in [[Heterodox Media]] to file. He is not a convert to the right: he remains a fierce critic of Israel and of the Trump administration's war on Iran. But he shares the right's platforms, guests and enemies often enough that the label "left" explains little about where his work circulates. The 2026 seizure adds a second lesson. Press-freedom groups took up his case on the principle that a border search of one reporter's phones sets a precedent for every reporter. ## Connections - [[Heterodox Media]] · [[The Grayzone]] · [[Ben Norton]] · [[Jimmy Dore]] · [[Glenn Greenwald]] - [[RT]] · [[Kremlin Disinformation]] · [[Syrian Civil War]] · [[Bashar al-Assad]] - [[Iran War 2026]] · [[CBP]] · [[Laura Loomer]] · [[Leonie Brinkema]] · [[First Amendment]] · [[Fourth Amendment]]