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Max Blumenthal and his associates at The Grayzone are facing renewed scrutiny over financial and organizational ties to foreign governments and state-sponsored media in Russia, Cuba and Iran despite denials of acting as unregistered foreign agents or accepting money from foreign governments.
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On August 29, Rep. Randy Fine [ [link removed] ] released a letter [ [link removed] ] addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Todd Blanche [ [link removed] ] calling for Blumenthal to be investigated for his attendance of the funeral of slain Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. [ [link removed] ] Fine pointed out that Blumenthal’s collaboration with the Iranian regime was extensive and, as the son of influential Democratic operative Sidney Blumenthal, the former aide to President Clinton and a confidant of Hillary Clinton, Blumenthal’s “cultivation as an agent of influence” by a hostile foreign adversary of the United States and its intelligence organs, which are designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, should draw counterintelligence scrutiny.
Blumenthal responded on X, accusing Fine [ [link removed] ] of “defamation” and denying he was “cultivated by [sic] an agent of influence by an FTO and current military adversary.”
Except leaked financial records, backed by new disclosures from the U.S. government, tell a different story.
Blumenthal, editor-in-chief of the independent outlet The Grayzone, has publicly rejected characterizations of himself or his colleagues as unregistered foreign agents. However, a review of U.S. government documents, nonprofit filings, media reports, and leaked materials suggest otherwise and raise questions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act [ [link removed] ] (FARA) and related sanctions rules.
Cuban Influence Networks and Solidarity Partnerships
A July 2026 [ [link removed] ] U.S. State Department report [ [link removed] ] on Cuban espionage and influence networks describes Havana’s long-running efforts to cultivate anti-American solidarity groups and activists. It highlights Cuba’s “role as a nexus connecting foreign networks with U.S.-based organizers.”
One documented partnership involves the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), long viewed by U.S. officials as an influence and intelligence front, and Al-Tajammu a Lebanon-headquartered “Resistance Axis” umbrella coalition, which “effectively functions as the Iranian counterpart” to ICAP. The U.S. sanctioned ICAP [ [link removed] ] in June for “supporting Cuban intelligence and counterintelligence activities.”
Al-Tajammu [ [link removed] ], “includes or coordinates with Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Houthis, and various Iranian-backed Iraqi militias,” per the State Department, and maintains branches in dozens of countries, including the United States. Analysts have described it as blending radical left-wing activism with support for groups designated as terrorist organizations [ [link removed] ] by the U.S. government. Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and Houthis are all listed by the United States as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities.
The State Department report on Cuba further noted: “In 2022, ICAP invited Al-Tajammu representatives to Cuba to formalize a cooperation and integration agreement between the Iranian- and Cuban-aligned international influence networks.”
Paul Larudee [ [link removed] ], an Iranian-born U.S. citizen based in the San Francisco area who has appeared on Iranian state media [ [link removed] ] and promoted theories that the September 11 attacks were a “false flag” by “extreme Zionists,” serves as Al-Tajammu’s North American branch coordinator. Larudee is also treasurer of the California-based Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees (commonly abbreviated “AIPAC,” distinct from the pro-Israel lobby of the same initials). That nonprofit acts as a fiscal sponsor for various activist groups, including those funding volunteer delegations to Cuba and Venezuela and supporting Latin American leftist media. IRS filings [ [link removed] ] show the group’s total revenue increased from $284,359 in the fiscal year ending January 2023 to $946,870 [ [link removed] ] in the year ending January 2025.
The Serena Shim Awards and Documented Payments
Blumenthal, along with his Grayzone colleague Aaron Maté and his former colleague Ben Norton, received funds through the Serena Shim Award [ [link removed] ] for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism, administered in connection with the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees. The award, named after a journalist who worked for Iranian state outlet Press TV, has gone to outlets and individuals including MintPress News, Consortium News, Caitlin Johnstone, Gareth Porter, and others critical of Western policy on Syria and related issues.
A 2021 New Lines Magazine investigation [ [link removed] ] detailed the opaque funding. One winner disclosed a $5,000 prize. [ [link removed] ] Public IRS records for the Association showed that in its 2018 filing period it disbursed roughly $72,000 in grants, more than half of which went to Serena Shim recipients: $10,000 to MintPress, $10,000 to Gareth Porter, and $20,000 to Max Blumenthal. [ [link removed] ] The Association has also fiscally sponsored the Syria Solidarity Movement [ [link removed] ] (a pro-Assad group) and paid former Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich $20,000 [ [link removed] ] in 2017 for a speech at a pro-Assad conference. Donors are not named in the combined returns, and the ultimate source of prize money has remained unclear. The website for the Association lists Blumenthal’s Grayzone as another active fiscally sponsored project [ [link removed] ].
Blumenthal has disputed claims that the funds originated from the Assad regime or related lobbying groups.
But by the U.S. State Department’s own definition, he has received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from an umbrella coalition “that includes or coordinates with” three U.S.-sanctioned terrorist groups — Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP (the Houthis were first designated in 2021) — and which has now integrated with cutout of arm of Cuban espionage.
Press TV Transactions and Sanctions Concerns
Blumenthal co-produced a documentary [ [link removed] ] on Gaza that was sold to Press TV, Iran’s English-language state broadcaster.
Leaked emails from a hack of Press TV [ [link removed] ] materials show correspondence involving collaborator Dan Cohen regarding the sale. Separately, Wyatt Reed (identified as a Grayzone managing editor) communicated with Press TV about payments; the outlet even indicated at one point that funds would need to be wired through an intermediary to avoid international sanctions.
Internal Press TV records identify Reed as a paid Press TV reporter and set his rates at $250 per news package, $100 for rush footage, $40 for a Skype appearance, $100 for a studio appearance, $100 for a standup, $20 for a telephone appearance and $100 for a vox-pop segment.
Reed invoiced Press TV for $1,200 for December 2020 and $490 for January 2021. On February 21, 2021, he asked Press TV to route his payment through Gamal Hassanein. On April 10, Press TV newsroom administrator Hamid Reza Koleini told Reed that an intermediary was needed because of U.S. sanctions and restrictions affecting small international transfers.
Press TV then allocated $1,690 for Reed’s December and January work through Global Media Services. On May 25, Hassanein confirmed receipt of the transfer. A separate June 2021 instruction directed $3,600 to Reed’s own account. On September 14, Koleini described Reed as Press TV’s Washington correspondent and recorded a further $330 as owed to him.
The payment documents expose a larger American structure.
One Press TV allocation divided $81,580 between Hassanein and an entity called APTVS (Royal Sphinx): $25,000 in three proposed transfers to Hassanein and $56,580 to APTVS.
New York records identify APTVS as American Press & Television Services LLC [ [link removed] ]. Press TV USA LLC and APTVS were both formed on September 4, 2007, and both used 36-01 37th Avenue, Long Island City. Official Congressional Directories identify Sam T. Eizeldin [ [link removed] ] and Gamal Hassanein with APTVS.
Press TV also approached a Blumenthal production directly.
On May 23, 2021, Paniz Khamoushian, an acquisition executive for Press TV International Documentaries, requested a screener of Killing Gaza [ [link removed] ] “for more evaluation and acquisition.” Dan Cohen supplied the film link on June 8 and copied Blumenthal. Press TV acknowledged receipt on June 13.
Press TV continued to identify Cohen through “Killing Gaza” in later programming, including interviews published on November 25, 2022, [ [link removed] ] and October 19, 2023. [ [link removed] ]
Now put those records against the sanctions chronology.
The U.S. Treasury Department designated Press TV’s parent, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, under Executive Order 13628 on February 6, 2013. [ [link removed] ] Treasury designated the IRGC under the counterterrorism authority of Executive Order 13224 on October 13, 2017. [ [link removed] ] The State Department added the IRGC, including its Quds Force, to the Foreign Terrorist Organization list [ [link removed] ] on April 15, 2019.
On October 22, 2020, immediately before [ [link removed] ] the Reed payment period, Treasury designated the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union and International Union of Virtual Media under Executive Order 13848 for being owned or controlled by the IRGC-Quds Force.
On June 22, 2021 — nine days after Press TV acknowledged the “Killing Gaza” screener — the United States seized [ [link removed] ] PressTV.com during an enforcement action involving 33 domains used by IRTVU. The Justice Department said IRTVU had obtained U.S.-based domain services without an OFAC license after its designation for IRGC-Quds Force ownership or control.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) separately designated [ [link removed] ] Press TV under Executive Order 13846 on September 15, 2023, for being owned or controlled by IRIB. Treasury stated that Press TV had been used by Iranian intelligence services to recruit sensitive assets, including U.S. persons.
In designating Press TV, Treasury stated that the outlet has “broadcasted scores of forced confessions and derogatory programs about Iranian activists, in many cases broadcasting forced confessions before detainee trials. Press TV has also been used by Iranian intelligence services to recruit sensitive assets, including U.S. persons.”
A March 2026 UK Telegraph linked [ [link removed] ] Press TV’s London studio to Iranian intelligence operations, specifically as “a front to recruit foreign assets.” The Iranian channel was said to have created “target list for terrorists” seeking to attack British Jewish organizations and individuals under the guise of reporting on Jewish charities, schools, and community groups. An anti-Semitic firebomb attack on a Jewish charity’s ambulances in north London occurred around the same period.
These ties mean senior Grayzone figures have received funds linked to Iranian state institutes with ties to Iranian intelligence and a now-designated foreign terrorist organization linked to atrocities against American and British citizens.
Russian Connections
Blumenthal and Maté have appeared with Dmitry Polyanskiy [ [link removed] ], then Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations (later ambassador to the OSCE in Vienna). Finnish analyst Pekka Kallioniemi [ [link removed] ] and others have described Polyanskiy as cultivating Western commentators; some accounts identify him as an SVR officer operating under diplomatic cover. The pair interviewed him shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (which Polyanskiy publicly downplayed) and also appeared with figures such as Jackson Hinkle [ [link removed] ], who attended the Ayatollah’s funeral with Blumenthal.
Additionally, Russia previously invited Blumenthal [ [link removed] ] to address the UN Security Council on the Ukraine war and Maté on claims regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded that the Assad regime was responsible for [ [link removed] ] the 2018 Douma attack, a finding Maté and others have disputed.
Further tying Blumenthal to Russia’s state sponsored and state funded propaganda is his attendance at RT’s 10th-anniversary gala [ [link removed] ] in Moscow in December 2015 as a paid speaker and guest, an event also attended by then-Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn [ [link removed] ] and pro-Kremlin blogger Charles Bausman (author of an anti-Semitic screed titled [ [link removed] ] “It’s Time to Drop the Jew Taboo”). Bausman later relocated to Moscow.
Shortly after his return from Russia’s RT gala, Blumenthal had funding and founded his publication [ [link removed] ], The Grayzone Project.That was right in the midst of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
As Rep. Fine correctly noted, given that Blumenthal is the son of Sidney Blumenthal [ [link removed] ], a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and a close confidante of Hillary Clinton, shown to by the Russian hack-and-leak operation to be in constant contact with the Democratic nominee that year, should Blumenthal’s compensation by the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees, a terrorist-aligned umbrella group, and by IRIB, the propaganda arm of a hostile foreign adversary of the United States, should be treated as a possible counterintelligence breach.
Is the U.S. Treasury Department aware of where part of Max Blumenthal’s income originates? Are the FBI and Department of Homeland Security?
At the very least, the pattern of awards, media sales, platform appearances, and organizational partnerships with entities tied to Cuba, Iran, and Russia warrants Max Blumenthal to register with FARA at minimum. Press TV’s links to the IRGC and its role in targeting lists, combined with ICAP’s documented coordination role further supports the urgency for Blumenthal to register both himself and Grayzone with FARA.
Grayzone principals have characterized these accusations and reporting into their foreign ties and funding as smears [ [link removed] ] aimed at silencing criticism of U.S. foreign policy.
Upon returning from the Ayatollah’s funeral in July, Blumenthal says his electronic devices were confiscated by DHS [ [link removed] ]. Perhaps instead of solely confiscating his devices, the Trump administration should force Blumenthal to register with FARA as many people would argue that he has clearly removed the boundaries between independent journalism, foreign influence operations, alleged material support for terrorism, and legal disclosure requirements.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
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