DELMAR, NY - This week, FBI agents raided the home of Scott Ritter, a retired intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector opposed US involvement in Iraq and opposes US policy in Ukraine, in this upstate New York city. The FBI issued a statement confirming that the raid was part of an “ongoing federal investigation” into Ritter, according to ZeroHedge.
The outlet reported that agents were witnessed entering Ritter’s home. It wasn’t clear if Ritter was home during the raid, nor what the allegations against him are.
“I can confirm FBI personnel are at a home on Dover [Drive] conducting law enforcement activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation,” an FBI statement read. “As the investigation is ongoing, [Department of Justice] policy prevents me from commenting further.”
Ritter came to prominence for his involvement as the chief UN weapons inspector in the 1990s in Iraq and was a former intelligence official who publicly opposed U.S. involvement in the war with Iraq. Ritter was assigned to Marine Corps intelligence.
Ritter was also an anti-war pundit described as a critic of U.S. foreign policy. For example, in 2019, he wrote, “I love my country, but the collective ignorance of the American people empowers so-called public servants who abuse their positions of trust to push policies that further individual agendas at the expense of the nation they ostensibly serve. Fact-based logic no longer matters.”
Ritter has recently become an outspoken credit of the U.S. policy involving the war between Ukraine and Russia and has also made several trips to Russia during the course of the war, which began in February 2022.
Coincidentally, Ritter posted a photo to X the day before the FBI raid of himself eating a burger with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with the caption “Burgers with Bobby.”
During some recent podcast appearances, Ritter said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized his passport as he was ready to board a flight to Russia on June 3, 2024. He revealed the incident several days later and said the State Department didn’t have a warrant, nor was an explanation for seizing his passport offered.
A report filed at the time said, "Scott Ritter, a retired intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector best known for his correct assertion ahead of the Iraq War that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction, as well as for his conviction for sex offenses in 2011, and the lengthy subsequent appeal, has asserted that his passport was seized on the orders of the State Department."
The American Conservative reached out to the State Department for comment after Ritter’s passport was seized, and they replied, “We cannot comment on the status of the passport of a private U.S. citizen.”
After this week’s FBI raid, Ritter posted on X, “This has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.”
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