Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate. My guest is Max Blumenthal, editor of the Gray Zone and author of the management of savagery.

As many people know, Max Blumenthal was recently arrested, charged with assault stemming from an incident that occurred five months ago at the Venezuelan embassy when

activists inside were there at the invitation of the Venezuelan government holding onto the

embassy in protest of the U.S.-backed coup after Venezuelan diplomats were forced to leave.

Max has been doing extensive reporting on the U.S.

back coup and this arrest was widely seen by many of us as retaliation for that reported.

Now there is a new development in that case and Max is here to discuss it with us.

Max, welcome to pushback. What is the latest

with your case? The charges by the U.S. government in the case of the U.S. versus Max Blumenthal

have been completely dropped. And so, you know, I've been vindicated, as I've always said, I was completely innocent.

These are bogus charges concocted by the Venezuelan opposition to persecute their critic and

to use law enforcement as a tool of revenge.

The charges against Benjamin Rubinstein, who was going to be my co-defendant, were also dropped.

The government must have realized that it had no case.

In addition, we've learned that the Secret Service mysteriously disappeared its call logs from the May 8th night of the incident in question.

And so the federal prosecutor verbally confirmed that those call logs basically of the police on the scene didn't exist anymore, which is very mysterious and very

notable. And it either suggests that they just weren't professional, that, you know, five months

later, after the incident, when my arrest took place, they had been

destroyed as part of procedure or there was some sort of cover-up going on.

But in any case, we had massive amounts of exculpatory evidence and the complainant,

who is obviously a liar and was used to defame me, who personally defamed me, had no evidence

at all.

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