He graduated as valedictorian from
McGill University. Mak broke the news about a Russian national in Washington, D.C. named
Maria Butina, who would later be convicted for acting as a Russian agent. After
President Donald Trump's lawyer
Michael Cohen threatened Mak in an attempt to prevent the publication of a story about Trump, the journalist published the recorded audio of Cohen's threats. In 2020, Mak obtained recorded audio of then-
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman
Richard Burr making a private speech about how devastating the coming
COVID-19 pandemic would be, in contrast to his optimistic public messaging. After it was revealed that he sold millions of dollars in stocks around the period he gave this speech, the senator was investigated for possible
insider trading. He has also written extensively on the
National Rifle Association of America (NRA). In 2021, he published secret tapes showing how the organization's executives reacted in strategy sessions following the
Columbine High School massacre. He covered the 2022
Russian invasion of Ukraine from within the country, having arrived the night the invasion began. the unit which shot down
MH-17; and investigating a war crime in the town of
Nova Basan. In May 2023, he launched
The Counteroffensive, a newsletter that publishes
narrative journalism and personal experiences from Ukraine during the
Russian invasion. It also reports from other places where people face challenges from authoritarianism, such as Syria, Georgia, and Taiwan. He told
Slate magazine that he wants to tell "deeply-reported human interest stories that humanize events." With a "small team of local journalists" operating in Kyiv, the audience had grown to approximately 150,000 subscribers, according to Forbes.
Politico cofounder
Robert Allbritton invested in Mak's company in 2025 to help expand The Counteroffensive's B2B defense technology publication, The Arsenal. It now has operations in Kyiv, Brussels and Berlin. In 2026, after the beginning of the
war in Iran, Mak expanded his coverage of international war with a new
Substack publication called
Iran War Dispatches with Tim Mak. == References ==