Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald was born in Queens, New York City, to Arlene and Daniel Greenwald. Greenwald's family moved to Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, when he was an infant; his parents separated when he was six. Greenwald is Jewish, but grew up without practicing an organized religion, did not have a bar mitzvah, and has said his "moral precepts aren't informed in any way by religious doctrine". Greenwald attended Nova Middle School and Nova High School in Davie, Florida.

Inspired by his grandfather's time on the then-Lauderdale Lakes City Council, Greenwald, still in high school, decided to run at the age of 17 for an at-large seat on the council in the 1985 elections. He was unsuccessful, coming in fourth place with 7% of the total vote. In 1991, Greenwald ran again, coming in third place with 18% of the vote. After that, he stopped running for political office and instead focused on law school.

He received a B.A. in philosophy from George Washington University in 1990 and a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1994. His experiences on his college debate team influenced his career path. "That developed, I think, a lot of the skills and interest that ended up guiding my future career," he said in an interview.

In 2005, Greenwald, aged 38, vacationed in Rio de Janeiro, where he met 19-year-old David Miranda, who had spent his childhood in the Jacarezinho Favela. Days after they met, Greenwald and Miranda moved in together; they later married and lived in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2017, the couple announced that they had gained legal guardianship of two brothers from Maceió, a city in Northeastern Brazil. They formally adopted the boys in 2018.

Miranda served as a member of the Brazilian National Congress with the left-wing PDT party, having formerly represented the PSOL party. Greenwald and Miranda were close friends of Brazilian human rights advocate and politician Marielle Franco, known for criticism of police tactics and corruption, who was fatally shot by unknown assailants. A New York Times profile described how Greenwald's reporting on high-level Bolsonaro officials and Miranda's outspoken opposition in Congress provoked the ire of the Bolsonaro administration.

While Greenwald does not participate in any organized religion, he has said he believes in "the spiritual and mystical part of the world" and that yoga is "like a bridge into that, like a window into it." Greenwald has been critical of the New Atheist movement, particularly Sam Harris and other critics of Islam.

In May 2023, Greenwald announced via Twitter that Miranda had died of a gastrointestinal infection in a Rio de Janeiro hospital after a nine-month stay in intensive care.

In May 2025, a series of intimate videos of Greenwald were leaked and circulated online. Greenwald stated in a post on X that they were leaked "without my knowledge or consent" and that the motive was a "maliciously political one".

United States

George W. Bush and Barack Obama eras

He criticized the policies of the Bush administration and those who supported it, arguing that most of the American "corporate news media" excused Bush's policies and echoed the administration's positions rather than asking hard questions. Greenwald accused mainstream U.S. media of "spreading patriotic state propaganda".

Donald Trump and Russian election interference

Greenwald has criticized some of the policies of the first Trump administration, saying, "I think the Trump White House lies more often. I think it lies more readily. I think it lies more blatantly."

During the Trump administration, Greenwald was a critic of the Democratic Party, alleging a double standard in their foreign policy: "Democrats didn't care when Obama hugged Saudi despots, and now they pretend to care when Trump embraces Saudi despots or Egyptian ones."

Greenwald expressed skepticism of the James Clapper-led US intelligence community's assessment that Russia's government interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Regardless of the accuracy of the assessment, he doubted its significance, stating "This is stuff we do to them, and have done to them for decades, and still continue to do."

Susan Hennessey, an NSA lawyer at the time of Snowden's NSA revelations, told Marcy Wheeler writing for The New Republic in January 2018, that Greenwald was only relaying "surface commentary" rather than evidence for or against Russian interference in the 2016 election. Tamsin Shaw wrote in The New York Review of Books in September 2018: "Greenwald has repeatedly, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, decried as Russophobia the findings that Putin ordered interference in the 2016 US presidential election".

Greenwald remained doubtful of assertions that the Trump presidential campaign worked with the Russians after the release of the letter about the Mueller's findings from attorney general William Barr in late March 2019. He called the investigation "a scam and a fraud from the beginning" in an appearance on Democracy Now!. Greenwald told Tucker Carlson on Fox News: "Let me just say, [MSNBC] should have their top host on primetime go before the cameras and hang their head in shame and apologize for lying to people for three straight years, exploiting their fears to great profit". He said he is formally banned from appearing on MSNBC, citing confirmations from two unnamed producers for the network, for his criticisms of its coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. MSNBC stated it has not barred Greenwald from appearing on its programs.

After the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, in April 2019 he wrote that the press continued to report that Trump's campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. In January 2020, Greenwald described the various assertions regarding Russian influence on American politics as "At the very best... wildly exaggerated hysteria and the kind of jingoistic fear-mongering that's plagued U.S. Politics since the end of WWII".

Litigation attorney

Greenwald practiced law in the litigation department at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz from 1994 to 1995. In 1996, he co-founded his own litigation firm, Greenwald Christoph & Holland (later renamed Greenwald Christoph PC), where he litigated cases concerning issues of U.S. constitutional law and civil rights. He worked pro bono much of the time, and his cases included representing white supremacist Matthew Hale in Illinois, who, Greenwald believed, was wrongly imprisoned, and the neo-Nazi National Alliance.

About his work in First Amendment speech cases, Greenwald told Rolling Stone magazine in 2013, "to me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it's easy... not when it supports your position, not when it protects people you like, but when it defends and protects people that you hate".

Later, according to Greenwald, "I decided voluntarily to wind down my practice in 2005 because I could, and because, after ten years, I was bored with litigating full-time and wanted to do other things which I thought were more engaging and could make more of an impact, including political writing."