(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter—a longtime critic of Joe Biden, NATO and the Israel—had his home raided by the FBI on Wednesday.
According to Ritter, the raid was related to a suspected violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires lobbyists for foreign countries to register with the Justice Department.
“I will tell you right now I am not in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act … and hopefully, by executing the search warrant and taking the information that they did, they will rapidly reach that conclusion,” Ritter told reporters outside his home.
Scott Ritter @RealScottRitter explains what he knows about the FBI raid on his home
"This has a chilling effect on freedom of speech" pic.twitter.com/gPcWoESFQk
— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) August 7, 2024
“There’s no doubt I’m being targeted because of statements I’ve made about U.S. policy in Ukraine, I’m being targeted because of an effort to improve relations,” he added. “This has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.”
In June, Ritter had his passport seized by U.S. authorities as he traveled to attend an international conference in Russia. Ritter was en route to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia when feds stripped him of his passport as he tried to board a flight in New York.
Ritter has long been an outspoken critic of Biden’s foreign policy. In 2022, he called Biden “a war criminal” due to his actions in Ukraine.
According to a since-deleted social-media post Ritter, Biden helped Ukraine promote anti-Russian propaganda in order to cover up for Ukrainian war crimes.
“Congratulations America,” he wrote, “we’ve created yet another Presidential war criminal!”
But the bad blood between the two goes back even farther. In 1998, while Biden was in the Senate, Ritter testified before the Senate in his capacity as UN weapons inspector.
At that hearing, Biden chastised him for allegedly failing to do his job well. Biden would later reportedly refuse to have Ritter as a witness during hearings into whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Ritter maintained that Iraq didn’t have WMDs, and he was proven correct.
Ritter does have previous convictions for unlawful contact with a minor and criminal solicitation.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
