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Journalist Glenn Greenwald is facing death threats for his reporting on Brazilian corruption. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
After Exposing 'Corrupted' Brazilian Government, Journalist Glenn Greenwald Faces Deportation Warning and Death Threats
"We have taken all the measures that we feel like we should take for our legal and physical security. After that you have to go about and do your work."
Jun 14, 2019
Journalist Glenn Greenwald and his family are receiving death threats over reporting from The Intercept on Brazilian corruption.
The "grotesque" threats came days after Greenwald and his colleagues published leaked chats from government officials that appear to show justice minister Sergio Moro was involved in a plot to keep former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, from entering the country's 2018 presidential race. The reporting has already caused controversy in Brazil and forced Moro to answer difficult questions from the public.
In addition to physical harm, Greenwald, who is American but lived in Brazil for many years, says powerful members of the Brazilian government are also threatening to have him deported because of his journalism.
Greenwald's husband, David Miranda, is a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party, and was elected to Brazil's National Congress last year.
In comments to AFP, Greenwald said his family would not be intimidated by the threats and would not leave Brazil.
"We have taken all the measures that we feel like we should take for our legal and physical security," said Greenwald. "After that you have to go about and do your work."
\u201cA Congressman from Bolsonaro's party explicitly threatening me with arrest and/or deportation for reporting on the massive improprieties of Bolsonaro's Justice Minister and the prosecutors who imprisoned Lula. This is their prevailing mentality, laid out explicitly:\u201d— Glenn Greenwald (@Glenn Greenwald) 1560459509
The Intercept's reporting showed how the Brazilian right wing used the levers of state power to keep Lula from running and in the process likely delivered the presidency to Jair Bolsonaro, a hard right politician whose brief time in power has been punctuated by relaxed regulations on environmental issues including opening the Amazon rainforest to exploitation.
In response to the expose, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) each raised concerns over Lula's continued imprisonment and the Bolsonaro government's involvement in the scandal.
"I stand with political and social leaders across the globe who are calling on Brazil's judiciary to release Lula and annul his conviction," Sanders said Wednesday.
In his comments to AFP, Greenwald said the threats against him were meant in part to discourage The Intercept from publishing more materials that could prove embarrassing for Moro, even resulting in the minister losing his position despite Bolsonaro's public support for his ally.
"The main victims of what we are revealing is Brazilian society," said Greenwald, "and the people who were punished and imprisoned by a process that was clearly run by people who had no regard for the rules that they are required to abide by."
"When those rules are violated," Greenwald said, "the entire system of justice is corrupted."
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Journalist Glenn Greenwald and his family are receiving death threats over reporting from The Intercept on Brazilian corruption.
The "grotesque" threats came days after Greenwald and his colleagues published leaked chats from government officials that appear to show justice minister Sergio Moro was involved in a plot to keep former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, from entering the country's 2018 presidential race. The reporting has already caused controversy in Brazil and forced Moro to answer difficult questions from the public.
In addition to physical harm, Greenwald, who is American but lived in Brazil for many years, says powerful members of the Brazilian government are also threatening to have him deported because of his journalism.
Greenwald's husband, David Miranda, is a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party, and was elected to Brazil's National Congress last year.
In comments to AFP, Greenwald said his family would not be intimidated by the threats and would not leave Brazil.
"We have taken all the measures that we feel like we should take for our legal and physical security," said Greenwald. "After that you have to go about and do your work."
\u201cA Congressman from Bolsonaro's party explicitly threatening me with arrest and/or deportation for reporting on the massive improprieties of Bolsonaro's Justice Minister and the prosecutors who imprisoned Lula. This is their prevailing mentality, laid out explicitly:\u201d— Glenn Greenwald (@Glenn Greenwald) 1560459509
The Intercept's reporting showed how the Brazilian right wing used the levers of state power to keep Lula from running and in the process likely delivered the presidency to Jair Bolsonaro, a hard right politician whose brief time in power has been punctuated by relaxed regulations on environmental issues including opening the Amazon rainforest to exploitation.
In response to the expose, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) each raised concerns over Lula's continued imprisonment and the Bolsonaro government's involvement in the scandal.
"I stand with political and social leaders across the globe who are calling on Brazil's judiciary to release Lula and annul his conviction," Sanders said Wednesday.
In his comments to AFP, Greenwald said the threats against him were meant in part to discourage The Intercept from publishing more materials that could prove embarrassing for Moro, even resulting in the minister losing his position despite Bolsonaro's public support for his ally.
"The main victims of what we are revealing is Brazilian society," said Greenwald, "and the people who were punished and imprisoned by a process that was clearly run by people who had no regard for the rules that they are required to abide by."
"When those rules are violated," Greenwald said, "the entire system of justice is corrupted."
Journalist Glenn Greenwald and his family are receiving death threats over reporting from The Intercept on Brazilian corruption.
The "grotesque" threats came days after Greenwald and his colleagues published leaked chats from government officials that appear to show justice minister Sergio Moro was involved in a plot to keep former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, from entering the country's 2018 presidential race. The reporting has already caused controversy in Brazil and forced Moro to answer difficult questions from the public.
In addition to physical harm, Greenwald, who is American but lived in Brazil for many years, says powerful members of the Brazilian government are also threatening to have him deported because of his journalism.
Greenwald's husband, David Miranda, is a member of the Socialism and Liberty Party, and was elected to Brazil's National Congress last year.
In comments to AFP, Greenwald said his family would not be intimidated by the threats and would not leave Brazil.
"We have taken all the measures that we feel like we should take for our legal and physical security," said Greenwald. "After that you have to go about and do your work."
\u201cA Congressman from Bolsonaro's party explicitly threatening me with arrest and/or deportation for reporting on the massive improprieties of Bolsonaro's Justice Minister and the prosecutors who imprisoned Lula. This is their prevailing mentality, laid out explicitly:\u201d— Glenn Greenwald (@Glenn Greenwald) 1560459509
The Intercept's reporting showed how the Brazilian right wing used the levers of state power to keep Lula from running and in the process likely delivered the presidency to Jair Bolsonaro, a hard right politician whose brief time in power has been punctuated by relaxed regulations on environmental issues including opening the Amazon rainforest to exploitation.
In response to the expose, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) each raised concerns over Lula's continued imprisonment and the Bolsonaro government's involvement in the scandal.
"I stand with political and social leaders across the globe who are calling on Brazil's judiciary to release Lula and annul his conviction," Sanders said Wednesday.
In his comments to AFP, Greenwald said the threats against him were meant in part to discourage The Intercept from publishing more materials that could prove embarrassing for Moro, even resulting in the minister losing his position despite Bolsonaro's public support for his ally.
"The main victims of what we are revealing is Brazilian society," said Greenwald, "and the people who were punished and imprisoned by a process that was clearly run by people who had no regard for the rules that they are required to abide by."
"When those rules are violated," Greenwald said, "the entire system of justice is corrupted."
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LATEST NEWS
Oklahoma Screening Teachers From California, New York for 'Radical Leftist Ideology'
"This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage," said American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.
Aug 20, 2025
Teachers from California and New York seeking work in Oklahoma will be required to pass an "America First Test" designed to weed out applicants espousing "radical leftist ideology," the state's public schools chief affirmed Monday.
Oklahoma—which has a severe teacher shortage, persistently high turnover, and some of the nation's worst educational outcomes—will compel prospective public school educators from the nation's two largest "blue" states to submit to the exam in a bid to combat what Superintendent for Public Instruction Ryan Walters calls "woke indoctrination."
"As long as I am superintendent, Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York," Walters said in a statement Monday.
Walters told USA Today that the test is necessary to vet teachers from states where educators "are teaching things that are antithetical to our standards" and ensure they "are not coming into our classrooms and indoctrinating kids."
However, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten warned in a statement Monday that "this MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage."
The exam will be administered by Prager University—also known as PragerU—a right-wing nonprofit group which, despite its name, is not an academic institution and does not confer degrees.
While all of the test's 50 questions have not been made public, the ones that have been published run the gamut from insultingly basic—such as, "What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?"—to ideologically fraught queries regarding the "biological differences between females and males."
PragerU's "educational" materials are rife with false or misleading information regarding slavery, racism, immigration, the history of fascism, and the climate emergency. Critics note that the nonprofit has received millions of dollars in funding from fossil fuel billionaires.
PragerU materials also promote creation mythology over scientific evolution and attack LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender individuals, calling lifesaving gender-affirming healthcare "barbaric" while likening its proponents to "monsters."
In one animated PragerU video, two children travel back in time to ask the genocidal explorer Christopher Columbus why he is so hated today. Columbus replies by asserting the superiority of Europeans over Indigenous "cannibals" and attempting to justify the enslavement of Native Americans by arguing that "being taken as a slave is better than being killed."
Closer to home, PragerU's curriculum aligns with so-called "white discomfort" legislation passed in Oklahoma and other Republican-controlled states that critics say prevents honest lessons on slavery, the Jim Crow and civil rights eras, and enduring systemic racism.
The law has had a chilling effect on teachers' lessons on historical topics including the 1921 Tulsa massacre, in which a white supremacist mob backed armed by city officials destroyed more than 35 city blocks of Greenwood, the "Black Wall Street," murdering hundreds of Black men, women, and children in what the US Justice Department this year called a "coordinated, military-style attack."
Responding to Oklahoma's new policy, University of Pennsylvania history professor Jonathan Zimmerman told The Associated Press that "instead of Prager simply being a resource that you can draw in an optional way, Prager has become institutionalized as part of the state system."
"There's no other way to describe it," he said, adding, "I think what we're now seeing in Oklahoma is something different, which is actually empowering Prager as a kind of gatekeeper for future teachers."
Oklahoma is not the only state incorporating PragerU materials into its curriculum. Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, and Texas have also done so to varying degrees.
Weingarten noted Walters' previous push to revise Oklahoma's curriculum standards to include baseless conspiracy theories pushed by President Donald Trump that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election. Walters also ordered all public schools to teach the Bible, a directive temporarily blocked by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in March. The court also recently ruled against the establishment of the nation's first taxpayer-funded religious charter school.
"His priority should be educating students, but instead, it's getting Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians to notice him," Weingrarten said in her statement.
Cari Elledge, president of the Oklahoma Education Association, called the new testing requirement "a political stunt to grab attention" and a distraction "from real issues in Oklahoma."
"When political ideology plays into whether or not you can teach in any place, that might be a deterrent to quality educators attempting to get a job," she added. "We think it's intentional to make educators fearful and confused."
California Teachers' Association president David Goldberg told USA Today that "this almost seems like satire and so far removed from my research around what Oklahoma educators need and deserve."
"I can't see how this isn't some kind of hyper-political grandstanding that doesn't serve any of those needs," he added.
Stephen Miller Blasted for Attacking Anti-Authoritarian Protesters in DC as 'Stupid White Hippies'
"Stephen Miller was a loser in college, and now we all must pay for it," remarked one critic.
Aug 20, 2025
Stephen Miller, the hardline immigrant-trashing adviser to US President Donald Trump, drew scorn and ridicule on Wednesday after he dismissed people protesting against the National Guard deployment in Washington, DC as elderly and ignorant "hippies."
During a visit to Union Station along with Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Miller took a shot at local residents who in recent days have demonstrated against Trump's takeover of their city's law enforcement.
"All these demonstrators that you've seen out here in recent days, all these elderly white hippies, they're not part of the city and never have been," Miller claimed. "We're gonna ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old."
Stephen Miller: "All these demonstrators that you've seen out here in recent days, all these elderly white hippies, they're not part of the city and never have been ... we're gonna ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over… pic.twitter.com/v7Bj4pfEPW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2025
Hundreds of people over this past weekend took part in a "Free DC" protest against the presence of the National Guard and assorted federal agents patrolling the city, and many other spontaneous protests have erupted as local residents have regularly gathered to jeer federal officials carrying out operations in their neighborhoods.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, shared a photo on Bluesky of an event that took place in the city on Tuesday, and he pointed out that people of different ages and colors can be seen protesting against the presence of the National Guard in their city.
"I don't see one 'elderly white hippie' there," he remarked. "I do see a wide variety of ages, genders, and races; DC residents united in disgust at what Miller is cheering on."
Princeton historian Kevin Kruse also slammed Miller for failing to notice the diversity of the crowds protesting against Trump's DC initiative.
"Stephen Miller is apparently so racist he can’t even *see* nonwhite people on the streets of DC protesting his goons," he commented on Bluesky. "Wait, is *that* what they meant by 'colorblind conservatism?'"
Pam Fessler, author and former correspondent for NPR, gave Miller a swift fact check in a post on X.
"Besides Miller's nastiness, he's wrong," she explained. "Guess what? A majority of DC residents, regardless of race, oppose Trump's unnecessary just-for-show federal takeover."
A poll released by The Washington Post on Wednesday backs up this point, as it found that 79% of DC residents are opposed to Trump's takeover, including 69% who register as "strongly" opposed.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University College of Law, speculated on Bluesky that Miller is lashing out at "hippies" to make up for his own past inadequacies.
"Stephen Miller was a loser in college, and now we all must pay for it... sincerely, someone who remembers him from school," said Kreis, who attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the same time Miller was attending nearby Duke University.
Podcaster Bob Cesca, meanwhile, warned Miller to be careful in antagonizing Washington, DC residents.
"I take comfort in the idea that, for the rest of his miserable life, he'll wonder how much phlegm and/or feces has been added to his restaurant meals," he joked on X.
DHS Strips Security Grants From Muslim Nonprofits Based on Report From Islamophobic 'Hate Group'
The Council on American-Islamic Relations says the Muslim groups being targeted "were smeared as 'Hamas-aligned'... because of their opposition to Israeli human rights abuses."
Aug 20, 2025
The Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday that it has suspended more than $8 million in grants to Muslim organizations it claims have "alleged terror ties" following a report from a notorious anti-Muslim group.
The money comes from FEMA's Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP), which provides aid to religious groups at risk of hate-based terrorist attacks, including security alarms, cameras, and armed guards.
DHS said it made the decision following a report from the Middle East Forum (MEF), a pro-Israel group, which alleged that DHS had given $25 million to "terror-linked groups" between 2013 and 2023. According to DHS, it has already suspended the funds to 49 different projects based on this report.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) describes MEF as an "anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim hate group" and its leader, Daniel Pipes, as "racist."
The foreign policy commentator was nominated to the board of the United States Institute of Peace by former President George W. Bush in 2003 despite a long history of anti-Muslim rhetoric.
This has included referring to Muslims as "brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene" and blaming the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which was committed by a US-born white supremacist, on Muslim "fundamentalists."
In 2004, after being nominated to the position, Pipes said he did "support the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II," and suggested it as a model for dealing with Muslims.
In the report, MEF described CAIR, which it says received $250,000 from FEMA, as a "Hamas-aligned" group. But the only evidence it cites is the organization's naming as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 2007 trial of the Holy Land Foundation for allegedly funnelling money to Hamas.
CAIR was never charged with a crime, but that case has nevertheless been used to tie it and many other Muslim nonprofits to terror groups with little to no evidence of wrongdoing.
MEF also singled out other organizations like the Islamic Society of Baltimore, merely because it was once "previously under FBI surveillance."
Others MEF singled out for their harsh rhetoric towards Israel. For instance, it described Michigan's Islamic Institute of Knowledge as an "outpost for Iran's revolutionary brand of Shi'a Islamism" because its leaders have allegedly "echoed Iranian regime rhetoric regarding Israel, including comparing Israel to the Nazis and blaming it for October 7."
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While DHS said it is conducting its own review to determine which groups to strip funding from, it told Fox News: "We take the results of the MEF report very seriously and are thankful for the work of conservative watchdog groups."
MEF previously told the New York Post that it is working with DHS to "rescind grants to extremist groups."
CAIR says the groups being targeted "were smeared as 'Hamas-aligned' by MEF because of their opposition to Israeli human rights abuses."
During his second term, Trump and congressional Republicans have aggressively targeted nonprofit organizations that criticize his policies, particularly those critical of Israel.
Trump has attempted to coerce universities, including Harvard, into cracking down on pro-Palestinian speech by students by threatening their nonprofit status.
In May, Republicans also snuck a provision into their giant reconciliation bill that would have given the treasury secretary unilateral authority to strip the nonprofit status of any organization he deemed to be supportive of a terrorist organization, which, to the Trump administration, often simply means voicing solidarity with Palestinians. However, that "nonprofit killer" measure was struck from the final version of the law.
This month, DHS updated its terms for providing grants to nonprofits. One new section now requires nonprofits to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Another requires them to swear off boycotts of Israel, which CAIR describes as "a political test targeting supporters of Palestinian rights."
"Our civil rights organization has no active federal grants that the Department could eliminate or cut," a CAIR spokesperson told Fox. "The government cannot ban American organizations from receiving federal grants based on their religious affiliation or their criticism of Israel's genocide in Gaza."
CAIR also condemned DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for "making decisions based on the ravings of the Middle East Forum, an Israel First hate website."
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