“A serious threat to press freedom” – FBI raid at Scott Ritter’s home

On 7 August 2024, at about 11 a. m., some 20 FBI officers arrived at Scott Ritter’s home with a search warrant “conducting law enforcement activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation”, according to an FBI official on site. The officers confiscated Ritter’s electronic devices and 25 boxes of paper files.
  This, despite the fact that the search warrant was only for electronic devices, as Ritter documents on his Substack site¹. The former UN weapons inspector is suspected of violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act, FARA (US law on the registration of foreign agents). In his video statement on Substack, Ritter expresses the suspicion that he is being targeted because of his freelance work for Russian media. However, the FARA law does not apply to freelancers or employees.
  According to Ritter, the interrogation by three FBI officers lasted over five hours. He has no complaints against them, but he does have complaints against the officers who initiated the search warrant. “I have nothing to hide”, Ritter told the press.

“… condemns the raid 
in the strongest terms”

The well-known investigative US news portal Consortium News (CN) reacted on 9 August and denounced the search of Ritter’s home as a serious threat to press freedom: 
  “Consortium News strongly condemns the raid on the home of its columnist Scott Ritter by the FBI. […]
In a video² posted to his Substack page, Ritter said that normally in alleged FARA violation cases the authorities send a letter to the subject of the inquiry informing them of the investigation. They don’t send numerous FBI agents to the door with a warrant to search and remove potential evidence. […]
  ‘So the idea that, this is a normal procedure is absurd in the extreme. I’m not a foreign agent. What I am is a journalist. And this is how we need to couch this entire thing. What the FBI did yesterday, what the United States government did yesterday, was a frontal assault not only on free speech, but on free press,’ Ritter said in the video. 
  Ritter says he’s being targeted because of his freelance work for Russian media. In the wake of ‘Russiagate’ [Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US election], the US Department of Justice in 2017 forced Russian-government financed media companies to register as foreign agents.³ But only the principal executives of RT and Sputnik need to register, not employees or freelancers such as Ritter.
  ‘They are seeking to intimidate a journalist with a long record of journalism, to intimidate this journalist, me, from engaging in activities such as the research and publication of articles and materials critical of U.S. policy in Ukraine, supportive of Russian objectives,’ he said.
  ‘So the fact that the Russian government and I happen to have coinciding viewpoints on critical issues of the day might reflect that we’re both on the right side of history as opposed to me being an agent of the Russian government. In fact, it does reflect that we’re both on the right side of history’ he said.
  Because of his views, Ritter has been placed on a ‘kill list’⁴ by the Ukranian government. The local CBS News affiliate in Albany, NY, apparently tipped off by the FBI, filmed agents removing boxes from Ritter’s home. In the process they revealed his home address and license plate numbers.
  ‘I’m a journalist. I have a constitutional right of free speech associated with a free press to do what I’m doing. And to shut up means I’ve allowed the United States government to intimidate a journalist into silence. That simply isn’t going to happen.
  Why would the FBI do this? I think we can’t ask that question without bringing up the obvious. What I’m saying and doing strikes fear in the hearts of some people in Washington, D.C., whether it be the State Department, the CIA, the White House, Department of Justice, it strikes fear in the hearts of the Ukranian government.’
  Consortium News calls on the Justice Department to immediately cease its intimidation of one of our columnists as it constitutes state interference in the operation of the media and a threat to press freedom.”

Source: https://consortiumnews.com/2024/08/09/cn-condemns-fbi-raid-on-cn-columnists-home/

“His experience, 
honesty and legitimacy …”

Karen Kwiatkowski, a former US Air Force officer with professional experience from her work in the Pentagon and with the NSA, and a well-known critic of the US war in Iraq, wrote on 10 August:
  “Retired US Marine Scott Ritter isn’t intimidated, and he doesn’t blame the FBI agents themselves. He reports they were alert and well behaved as they searched and searched his cars and home for electronic devices and records on Wednesday. Ritter, a former UN nuclear weapons inspector and Marine, spoke out early on the neocons and the Bush administration’s lies about WMD in Iraq around 2002. He has few admirers inside the ‘deep state’ and his continued activism for common sense and peace in US foreign policy made him angry.
  His experience, honesty and legitimacy are a triple threat to any state that manages its foreign policy ahistorically, based on constant lies and spin and without electoral legitimacy. […]
  Scott has been the target of the American war machine and the back boys running the country for decades. A few months ago, US agents confiscated his passport just before he boarded a plane from New York to Istanbul en route to the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg. This action and this week’s FBI raid appear to be connected to Ritter’s excellent insights and communications on Washington’s neocon policy in Russia and the costly and tragic US/NATO misadventure in Ukraine.”

Source: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/08/karen-kwiatkowski/the-fbi-leading-indicator-of-deep-state-priorities/

“A fierce and 
articulate antiwar warrior”

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, former judge at the Superior Court of New Jersey, a recognised expert in US constitutional law with a Princeton degree and known to many through the important interviews on his platform Judging Freedom, categorises the process in an article from a constitutional and historical perspective. He says of Scott Ritter:
  “Scott is a courageous and gifted former Marine. He is also a fierce and articulate antiwar warrior. […] Last week, when FBI agents searched Ritter’s home in upstate New York, in addition to trucks, guns, a SWAT team and a bomb squad, they arrived with printed copies of two years’ of Ritter’s emails and texts that they obtained without a search warrant.
  To do this, they either hacked into Ritter’s electronic devices – a felony – or they relied on their cousins, the CIA and the NSA, to do so, also a felony.”
  Based on his detailed analysis, Napolitano concludes: “The invasion of Scott Ritter’s home was a perversion of the Fourth Amendment, a criminal theft of his private property and an effort to chill his free speech. But it was not surprising. This is what has become of federal law enforcement today. The folks we have hired to protect the Constitution are destroying it.”

Source: https://judgenap.com/the-fbi-visits-scott-ritter/

“Pilloried by the neocons”

Philip Giraldi, former CIA intelligence officer, columnist and security consultant, also commented on the case in an article on 12 August:
  “On August 7^th, it was reported that Scott Ritter, who I consider a friend, had his house in New York State searched by FBI and police and twenty-five boxes containing documents and electronic communications devices were reportedly taken away for examination in an ‘ongoing investigation.’ Scott, a former Marine corps intelligence officer, has anti-war credentials that go way back to before the Iraq War when he, as a United Nations Weapon inspector, declared that Saddam Hussein had no ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMD). WMD fear was being promoted in Washington as the reason for attacking and disarming Iraq. Scott was pilloried both by the mainstream media and by the Pentagon’s and White House’s mostly Jewish neocons (Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Richard Perle and Scooter Libby) who were busy fabricating deliberately misleading information and disseminating it to encourage the George W. Bush administration to start the war, which it obligingly did. Scott nevertheless has continued to be an effective gadfly over war and peace issues ever since that time.”

Source: https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/there-is-something-rotten-in-washington/

* * *

Consortium News did the only right thing in this situation. The news portal immediately documented the facts, clearly condemned the action and called on the US Department of Justice to immediately stop intimidating its columnist. In doing so, it stood behind its columnist. In a case like this, which is unfortunately not an isolated incident, there is only one thing to do: give our full support. Other personalities with long professional experience have also expressed their appreciation of Scott Ritter’s work and commitment in various articles. In the meantime, there are numerous other statements and interviews with Scott Ritter that can be followed on CN or on his Substack.  •

¹ https://scottritter.substack.com/p/a-video-response-to-the-fbi-raid
² ibid.
³ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rt-agrees-to-register-as-an-agent-of-the-russian-government/2017/11/09/bd62f9a2-c558-11e7-aae0-cb18a8c29c65_story.html
⁴ https://myrotvorets.center/criminal/?cf%5Bname%5D=William+Ritter&cf%5Bcountry%5D=&cf%5Baddress%5D=&cf%5Bphone%5D=&cf%5Bdesc%5D=