# Max Blumenthal

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Max Blumenthal," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/max-blumenthal/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*American investigative journalist and a personal friend of John Kiriakou, whom Kiriakou calls one of the most brilliant people he has ever encountered and singles out for an ability to assemble scattered fragments into a picture 'in a way that almost no one else I know is able to do.' Kiriakou also recounts Blumenthal's arrest outside the Venezuelan embassy, where he says video showed Blumenthal was the one assaulted, and counts him among the independent journalists under the same official pressure he is.*

- **Field:** Independent investigative journalism
- **Kiriakou's assessment:** 'One of the most brilliant people I've ever encountered'
- **Relationship:** Personal friend
- **Outlet:** Publisher of The Grayzone
- **Family:** Son of Sidney Blumenthal, the Clinton confidant
- **Also invited:** One of six Americans asked to meet Iran's president in New York, September 2025
- **Venezuelan embassy case:** Charges dropped; Kiriakou says video showed Blumenthal was assaulted

**Max Blumenthal** is an American independent investigative journalist whom [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) describes as a personal friend and one of the most capable analysts working.[1]

## Kiriakou's assessment

*"Max Blumenthal is a friend of mine and I'll tell you what, he's one of the most brilliant people I've ever encountered. He is able to put these pieces of a puzzle together in a way that almost no one else I know is able to do."*[1] Kiriakou routinely places him among the small set of commentators whose reading of the Israeli–Iranian confrontation he treats as the conventional wisdom worth taking seriously, alongside [Trita Parsi](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/trita-parsi) and Larry Johnson.[2]

## The Venezuelan embassy case

Kiriakou recounts that Blumenthal was accused of assaulting a woman outside the Venezuelan embassy in Washington and had the charges dropped roughly a month before Kiriakou discussed it in February 2020. On Kiriakou's account the video showed the reverse of the allegation — *"it was Max who was assaulted, he never raised his hand to anybody, a woman or otherwise"* — and the police did nothing.[3]

## The Grayzone

Blumenthal publishes *The Grayzone*, and Kiriakou identifies him as the son of Sidney Blumenthal, the Clinton confidant — a genealogy he raises only to underline that the son does not write like the family's politics would predict. He introduces him as a cutting-edge journalist while describing the sequence in which pressure moved from Consortium News outward to other independent outlets, The Grayzone among them.[4]

Blumenthal is a fixed point in Kiriakou's answer to where an ordinary reader should now go for reporting. Asked repeatedly who is still doing real investigative journalism, he answers with ProPublica, the Brennan Center, Dropsite News and Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone — work of a kind, he says, no longer done at the *Post*, the *New York Times*, the *Wall Street Journal* or the *LA Times*.[5][6] Asked whom to follow rather than what to read, he gives a short list he keeps deliberately short — Ryan Grim, Blumenthal, Elizabeth Lane — and, for the Middle East specifically, Blumenthal and Aaron Maté, both of whom he calls terrific writers and analysts.[7][8] On Iran his confidence is unqualified: Blumenthal at The Grayzone, he says, knows everything that is happening there now.[9] He also lists him among the figures who constitute the new media, alongside Ken Klippenstein and Alexander Mercouris.[10]

Two pieces of Blumenthal's reporting recur in Kiriakou's own arguments: video of a Grayzone journalist questioning pro-Shah, pro-Israel Iranian-American demonstrators about what they were actually supporting, and the reposting of the photograph of American special operators in Israel greeting President Biden — an image that officials tried to take down while denying Americans were there.[11][12]

## Invited together

In September 2025 Kiriakou disclosed on air, for the first time, that he was one of six people invited to meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in New York during the UN General Assembly — he had accepted without asking what it was about. Blumenthal was another of the six, along with Medea Benjamin and Andy Shallal; Kiriakou did not know who the remaining two were.[13][14]

## Under the same pressure

Kiriakou groups Blumenthal with himself and with outlets such as MintPress News when describing official and institutional pressure on independent journalists: *"nobody's safe … ask Max Blumenthal, he'll tell you all about it, because he's under the same kind of pressure … they're coming after all of us."*[15]

## See also

- [Trita Parsi](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/trita-parsi)
- [The death of investigative journalism](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/death-of-investigative-journalism)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. Charlie Kirk's Story Crumbles — Iran (2025-10-11), at 11:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V5GlZ4IodQ&t=710s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-11-dialogue-works-charlie-kirk-s-story-crumbles-iran/
2. Charlie Kirk's Story Crumbles — Iran (2025-10-11), at 43:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V5GlZ4IodQ&t=2592s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-11-dialogue-works-charlie-kirk-s-story-crumbles-iran/
3. The Bitter Truth (Abe Abdelhadi) (2020-02-17), at 19:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dc3VQJIJRw&t=1161s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-02-17-the-bitter-truth-abe-abdelhadi/
4. CIA Spy Breaks Down What's REALLY Happening in Israel (2023-12-11), at 26:35. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw_RQc2tpvY&t=1595s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-12-11-danny-jones-whats-really-happening-in-israel/
5. Former Spy Reveals the Brutal Survival Rules Inside the (2026-05-20), at 27:39. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf8xsrnBBs0&t=1659s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-20-covert-operations-insight/
6. Iran War, Media Bias, Gen Z Advice | DEEP FOCUS with John Kiriakou (2026-04-14), at 28:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6VUFJeNf1A&t=1680s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-14-deep-focus-iran-war-media-bias/
7. Iran War, Media Bias, Gen Z Advice | DEEP FOCUS with John Kiriakou (2026-04-14), at 08:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6VUFJeNf1A&t=480s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-14-deep-focus-iran-war-media-bias/
8. CIA Whistleblower Speaks Out "The Only Reason the US & Israel Invaded Iran is.." (2026-03-25), at 1:01:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dztm-FpDC0s&t=3690s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-25-mark-bouris-cia-whistleblower-us-israel-invaded-iran/
9. CIA Whistleblower Speaks Out "The Only Reason the US & Israel Invaded Iran is.." (2026-03-25), at 1:01:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dztm-FpDC0s&t=3660s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-25-mark-bouris-cia-whistleblower-us-israel-invaded-iran/
10. Guest: John Kiriakou — CIA Whistleblower on America’s Secret Drug Wars (2025-05-19), at 55:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audd5604ade&t=3322s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-05-19-the-free-thought-project-podcast-guest-john-kiriakou-cia-whistleblower-on-amer/
11. John Kiriakou: CIA Hit in Iran's Retaliation Strike — Breakdown of WAR (2026-03-09), at 04:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QL0KvdzMzk&t=270s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-09-dialogue-works-cia-hit-iran-retaliation-strike/
12. John Kiriakou: The CIA Whistleblower Who Went to Prison for Telling the Truth (2026-06-08), at 12:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr1NKUPsP-g&t=773s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-08-ddgeopolitics-prison-for-truth/
13. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-04), at 1:08:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPfeItwnb4&t=4096s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-04-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
14. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-04), at 1:08:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPfeItwnb4&t=4127s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-04-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
15. John Kiriakou on the War on Alternative Media (2022-05-06), at 16:45. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW1kBeG4444&t=1005s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2022-05-06-scott-horton-ep-5709/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/max-blumenthal/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt