CBP seized journalist Max Blumenthal's phones at Dulles Airport days after Trump ally Loomer called for his arrest

On July 10, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped journalist Max Blumenthal for a roughly two-and-a-half-hour secondary inspection at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia as he returned from a reporting trip to Tehran, where he had covered the funeral of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei for the outlet he founded, The Grayzone. Officers questioned him about who funded his trip, whether he had been paid for interviews, and whether he planned to return to Iran, then demanded the passcodes to his two smartphones. When Blumenthal declined, citing his obligation to protect confidential sources, an officer said the devices would be "hook[ed] up to machines" to extract their data, and CBP seized both phones while leaving his laptop and camera untouched. CBP returned the phones roughly a week later without explaining what, if anything, had been extracted from them.

Days before Blumenthal's return, Trump ally Laura Loomer posted on X that Blumenthal — whom she called "a shill for Islam and communism" — should be raided by the FBI, stripped of his passport by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and investigated by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over how he paid for the trip. During his detention, CBP's questions closely mirrored Loomer's demands, and other American journalists who covered the same funeral, including reporters for CNN and NBC, were not subjected to comparable searches or device seizures on their return.

Blumenthal and the ADC, which represents him, said the seizure appears to be viewpoint-based retaliation for reporting critical of U.S. and Israeli policy toward Iran. ADC President and Legal Director Jenin Younes said the search raised "grave First and Fourth Amendment concerns" absent a "legitimate and particularized national security justification." Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the episode reflects the administration "finding any excuse it can to target journalists it dislikes," calling border searches "one more play in the playbook."

Updates

2026-07-16 — ADC sued DHS Secretary Mullin seeking return of Blumenthal's phones [4]

ADC filed a time-sensitive motion in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Blumenthal's behalf, captioned Blumenthal v. Mullin, seeking the immediate return of his phones and any data extracted from them under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g) and arguing the warrantless seizure violated the First and Fourth Amendments and the Privacy Protection Act.

2026-07-29 — Federal judge ordered discovery, cited Fourth Amendment concerns [1, 5]

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, the government argued the case was moot because it had returned the phones; Brinkema instead ordered limited discovery into what CBP did with the devices, said a search warrant would likely have been required for the "advanced" forensic search CBP attempted, and situated the case within a broader pattern of the administration targeting reporters, including its failed subpoena of New York Times reporters.