On Wednesday the upstate New York home of Scott Ritter was raided by the FBI and state police. The FBI has since confirmed in a statement that this is part of an ongoing federal investigation into Ritter.

Agents were seen entering his house in Delmar, NY in widely shared photographs and local media footage in the afternoon. It was unclear if Ritter was at home at the time and the allegations at the center of the investigation remain unknown.

“I can confirm FBI personnel are at a home on Dover [Drive] conducting law enforcement activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation,” a statement from the FBI’s Albany office confirmed. “As the investigation is ongoing, [Department of Justice] policy prevents me from commenting further.” 

Ritter became a prominent figure as the chief UN weapons inspector in the 1990s in Iraq and ex-intelligence official (Marine Corp intelligence) who publicly opposed the George W. Bush administration’s drive to take the United States into war with Iraq.

He subsequently became a popular anti-war pundit and leading critic of US foreign policy. For an example of his ongoing criticisms of the US government and foreign policy, he wrote in 2019,

“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.”

More recently he has been a fierce critic of US policy related to the war in Ukraine, having also made several trips to Russia during the course of the war which began in February 2022. 

Interestingly, just the day prior to the FBI’s raid on his home, Ritter posted a photo of himself eating a burger with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Burgers with Bobby!” the caption reads…

Burgers with Bobby! pic.twitter.com/J5fF2MepKd

— Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) August 7, 2024

Ritter recently explained during a series of podcast appearances that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had seized his passport when he was about to board a flight for Russia on June 3rd. This was first revealed by him days later, and he said the State Dept. had no warrant, nor did it offer an explanation upon taking the passport. A report at the time stated:

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 subsequently approached the State Department for comment, and it responded: “We cannot comment on the status of the passport of a private U.S. citizen.”

Ritter has offered the following comment in the wake of the Wednesday FBI raid…

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

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Featured image is from ZH