© The GrayzoneMax Blumenthal reporting from Tehran, Iran, July 2026
On July 10, 2026, American journalist Max Blumenthal was traveling back to the United States from Iran, which he had visited to report on the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the largest gathering in human history. While in Iran, Blumenthal interviewed members of Iran's negotiation team, top political officials, academics and average citizens for a series of video and print reports for this news outlet, which he founded.
He also documented several US and Israeli war crimes from the ground, including the destruction of an entire neighborhood in Eastern Tehran which left at least 40 civilians dead.
Upon reentering the country at Dulles International Airport, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) interrogated Blumenthal about his trip, searched his belongings, and demanded that he provide access to his smart phones. When he refused to open his phones, CBP officers forced him to turn them over for detention. Other journalists and travelers have been threatened with the loss of their passports for a month for failing to hand over their devices.
Blumenthal entered Iran exactly as reporters working for establishment media outlets like CNN and NBC did - on a press visa granted by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. While in Tehran, he participated in official press events alongside those mainstream reporters, who were also in the country to cover the Ayatollah's funeral. When journalists from CNN, NBC, and other American outlets returned to the US, however, they were not subjected to the same harassment Blumenthal experienced, nor were they required to give the US government their electronic devices.
Blumenthal is a widely recognized journalist in American independent media, with a record of reporting spanning 25 years. He is the author of four books, including a New York Times bestselling volume, and numerous widely viewed documentary films. Having reported from numerous countries and conflict zones around the world, he is the winner of several awards, including the Online Journalism Award and, most recently, the Pierre Sprey Award for Defense Reporting and Analysis.
"It was precisely because of my journalism that I was targeted by the Trump administration," Blumenthal commented.
"The US government is clearly threatened by my reporting from Tehran, where I showed the massive crowds of mourners and ferocious public backlash to the assassination of [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, exposed US and Israeli war crimes against civilians from the ground, and conducted candid interviews with officials and negotiators. The seizure of my devices was a clear act of intimidation aimed at deterring me and others from doing further critical reporting from Iran about the illegal war ravaging the country, which is likely why my interrogators from CPB demanded to know if I would be returning to Tehran any time soon."Jenin Younes, a civil liberties lawyer who serves as President of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), also protested the US government's seizure of Blumenthal's devices. "The practice of seizing and searching a journalist's phone or other electronic devices at the border raises grave First and Fourth amendment concerns," Younes told The Grayzone
. "Absent a legitimate and particularized national security justification, search of phones should not be a condition of entering the country. The Supreme Court has recognized the important privacy interests in modern smart phones, an interest that is not diminished simply because an American is crossing the border. The search and seizure of Blumenthal's phones is yet more concerning because it appears to be viewpoint based discrimination, given that prominent associates of the current administration have singled him out for condemnation because of his views."Targeted by Israeli doxxing outfit and accused predator Laura Loomer for reporting from Tehran
In 2025, Blumenthal traveled to Iran to participate in a public media festival, report on US-Iranian negotiations, and produce a documentary on Iran's Jewish community. When he returned to Washington, CPB did not demand his electronic devices.
Yet almost as soon as he arrived in Tehran, with the Khamenei funeral underway, Blumenthal was immediately subjected to defamatory attacks by Trump-aligned individuals and Israeli organizations supportive of war on Iran. Leading the charge was Canary Mission, an anonymous doxxing outfit based in Israel, which portrayed Blumenthal as an "extremist" who had traveled to Tehran to "honor" the Ayatollah - when he had, in fact, reported on the funeral as a journalist.
Founded in 2015 to ruin the lives and career prospects of university students involved in Palestine solidarity activity, Canary Mission has since been used by the Trump administration to select international students for arrest and deportation. An investigation by the independent outlet Drop Site revealed that the outfit was based out of an Israeli non-profit called Megamot Shalom. Among the top supporters to Megamot Shalom is the Wexner Foundation. Established by the billionaire lingerie tycoon Les Wexner, the foundation that featured Jeffrey Epstein as a trustee until the wealthy sex offender died in prison under mysterious circumstances.
Laura Loomer, a close ally of President Donald Trump, followed Canary Mission's lead by calling for the US military to massacre attendees of Khamenei's funeral, including Blumenthal and all other journalists covering the event. She then smeared Blumenthal as a "shill for Islam and communism" for reporting from Iran. Loomer escalated by wishing for the journalist to be swatted, jailed and denationalized: "I hope you're raided in a heavily armed raid by the @FBI at 5 am and that @SecRubio [Secretary of State Marco Rubio] strips you of your passport for aiding the Iranian regime as they chant Death to America," she tweeted at Blumenthal.
An apparent victim of botched facial surgeries, Loomer is credited with compelling Trump to fire numerous holdovers from previous administrations. These include the National Security Council's top Iran expert, Nate Swanson, who correctly warned that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz if the US attacked it.
Loomer has functioned as a gun-for hire for unsavory billionaires, lobbying firms, and various Zionist interests, defaming individuals who interfere with their malign objectives. The Orthodox Jewish Medicare fraudster Joseph Schwartz appears to have also hired Loomer to smear the judge ruling in his case as an antisemite. This year, Loomer visited India on a propaganda junket covered by India Today, a newspaper close to the Hindu supremacist BJP party of President Narendra Modi. While there, Loomer paid homage to the Dalai Lama, a longtime CIA asset who has publicly molested children by forcing them to suck his tongue.
For her part, Loomer has been accused of sexual assault by several former associates. These include Alan Jacoby, a MAGA activist who called her a "sexual predator psychopath" who "groped me in the parking lot, grabbing my crotch very aggressively and demanding I come back to her NYC hotel room to engage in some vile descriptive sexual activities."
Milo Yianoppolous, Loomer's former friend and communications director, has branded her a "rapist," telling reporters he severed ties with her after she sexually harassed a young male campaign aide. When Loomer threatened to sue right-wing pundits Lauren Southern and Cassandra Fairbanks for accusing her of sexual assault, Southern responded: "Based on reports that you and I know exist, I think Cass [Fairbanks] and I will be fine."
Blumenthal commented:
"The new architecture of repression is being managed by a collection of knaves, con artists, sex pests, and mass murderers who fear accountability for their crimes. So perhaps it's not surprising that someone who has been repeatedly accused of vile transgressions, or a propaganda operation of an Israeli government engaged in genocide, could have instigated the Trump administration to treat my journalism as a form of illegal activity. Our reporting at The Grayzone has clearly become a problem for this criminal cartel, and that's why we have to keep going."
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