FBI Executes Search Warrant On Scott Ritter's Home

The RT article is the first full length account I’ve seen. Note that Ritter states that the search warrant was issued pursuant a supposed violation of FARA—the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It so happens that I was considering writing a post this afternoon about AIPAC and FARA. That idea was sparked by listening to Danny Davis trying to get a straight answer out of John Mearsheimer regarding AIPAC. Almost any way DD asked his questions, Mearsheimer stonewalled him with the goofy line that anything that AIPAC does is “perfectly legal” as regards FARA, and that AIPAC and its operatives are not foreign agents under FARA. Well, first, regarding Scott Ritter:

The RT contributor is reportedly being investigated as a “foreign agent” 

Federal agents and state police have searched the house of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in New York state on Wednesday.

State Police and FBI agents descended on the street of Bethlehem township, south of Albany, around noon, according to the local outlet Times-Union. They carried “more than two dozen boxes” out of the house just before 5pm local time.

The law enforcement executed a search warrant “related to concerns apparently the US government has about violations of the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (FARA)” Ritter told reporters gathered outside the house after the agents left.

He denied any allegations of wrongdoing and said the federal government was trying to intimidate him.

📢🇺🇸JUST IN: Scott Ritter's house is being raided by the FBI right now! pic.twitter.com/FUpZcFsKJ7

— Aussie Cossack (@aussiecossack) August 7, 2024

An FBI spokesperson confirmed “law enforcement activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation,” but would say nothing further.

Ritter is a former US Marine Corps major who served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s. He opposed the 2003 US invasion, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s government did not have weapons of mass destruction, as Washington claimed at the time. 

He has also been an RT contributor and saw his passport seized by the US government when he tried to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June.

Jim Hoffman, Ritter’s neighbor across the street for two decades, told the Times-Union that the former inspector has kept a low profile.

“When he came out against the Iraq War back in early 2000s, he was vilified everywhere,” Hoffman said. “Honestly, he was right. He said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” 

Ritter himself has not posted anything about the raid on social media. His most recent post on X was from Tuesday’s meeting with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

The administrators of his Telegram channel posted photos of the raid and said they have not heard from him either.

Next, it’s always useful to read the statute in question. There’s nothing tricky about FARA and it’s not even very long. I reproduce the relevant portions of the definitions section, edited to give you the general purport:

As used in and for the purposes of this subchapter—

(a) The term “person” includes an individual, partnership, association, corporation, organization, or any other combination of individuals;

(b) The term “foreign principal” includes—

(1) a government of a foreign country and a foreign political party;

(2) …

(3) ...

(c) Expect [1] as provided in subsection (d) of this section, the term “agent of a foreign principal” means—

(1) any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person—

(i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal;

(ii) …

(iii) …

(iv) within the United States represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States; and

(2) ...

(d) The term “agent of a foreign principal” does not include any news or press service or association organized under the laws of the United States or of any State or other place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, …

…

(o) The term “political activities” means any activity that the person engaging in believes will, or that the person intends to, in any way influence any agency or official of the Government of the United States or any section of the public within the United States with reference to formulating, adopting, or changing the domestic or foreign policies of the United States or with reference to the political or public interests, policies, or relations of a government of a foreign country or a foreign political party;

(p) ...

Since the Fourth Amendment provides that

no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I have to assume that the FBI didn’t come just looking for “stuff” and, further, that they presented “probable cause” to show that the “particularly describ[ed] … things to be seized” were actually currently within Ritter’s home. I’ll leave it at that.

However, I urge readers to go back over the provisions of FARA above and consider whether the activities of AIPAC as we know them through public news accounts are really “perfectly legal”, as Mearsheimer has repeatedly claimed. Look, there is no law that states that AIPAC is not an agent of the government of Israel, or of operatives of that government. It’s true that DoJ has never prosecuted or threatened to prosecute or vaguely considered prosecuting AIPAC under FARA. That’s the result of what DoJ claims its scrutiny of the issue leads them to believe. It’s NOT because AIPAC’s status as an agent of the goverment of Israel has never been asserted. In particular, review the definition of “political activities and then read these excerpts from Wikipedia:

Former Senator William Fulbright, in the 1970s, and former senior CIA official Victor Marchetti, in the 1980s, contended that AIPAC should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).^[128] FARA requires those who receive funds or act on behalf of a foreign government to register as a foreign agent. However, AIPAC states that the organization is a registered American lobbying group, funded by private donations, and maintains it receives "no financial assistance" from Israel or any other foreign group.^[129]

But that’s beside the point. FARA does not require that a foreign agent receive financial assistance from a foreign power. Reread the definition of “political activities” and then read this:

In 1992, AIPAC president David Steiner was forced to resign after he was recorded boasting about his political influence in obtaining aid for Israel. Steiner also claimed that he had "met with (then Bush U.S. Secretary of State) Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear ... Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people don't even know about."^[132] Steiner also claimed to be "negotiating" with the incoming Clinton administration over who Clinton would appoint as Secretary of State and Secretary of the National Security Agency. Steiner stated that AIPAC had "a dozen people in [the Clinton] campaign, in the headquarters... in Little Rock, and they're all going to get big jobs."^[132]

New York real estate developer Haim Katz told The Washington Times that he taped the conversation because "as someone Jewish, I am concerned when a small group has a disproportionate power. I think that hurts everyone, including Jews. If David Steiner wants to talk about the incredible, disproportionate clout AIPAC has, the public should know about it."^[133]

Uh, does that sound like “political activity” to you? Me too.

Now, bear in mind that Israel notoriously spies on the US. The nuclear bomb, the Liberty, Jonathan Pollard, and etc. Does Mearsheimer really believe what he says, when he claims that AIPACers sincerely believe that what’s good for Israel is also good for the US? Or is he just gaslighting us? If that’s the case, why do AIPACers think they have to bribe the goys to do what’s good for them? Weird! to use the current Dem mantra. And don’t think it stopped years ago, or that AIPACers don’t do the odd bit of spying for Israel:

In April 2005, AIPAC policy director Steven Rosen and AIPAC senior Iran analyst Keith Weissman were fired by AIPAC amid an FBI investigation into whether they passed classified U.S. information received from Lawrence Franklin on to the government of Israel. They were later indicted for illegally conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to Israel.^[134][135] AIPAC agreed to pay the legal fees for Weissman's defense through appeal if necessary.^[136]

In May 2005, the Justice Department announced that Lawrence Anthony Franklin, a U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel working as a Department of Defense analyst at the Pentagon in the office of Douglas Feith, had been arrested and charged by the FBI with providing classified national defense information to Israel. The six-count criminal complaint identified AIPAC by name and described a luncheon meeting in which, allegedly, Franklin disclosed top-secret information to two AIPAC officials.^[137][138]

Franklin pleaded guilty to passing government secrets to Rosen and Weissman and revealed for the first time that he also gave classified information directly to an Israeli government official in Washington. On January 20, 2006, he was sentenced to 151 months (almost 13 years) in prison and fined $10,000. As part of the plea agreement, Franklin agreed to cooperate in the larger federal investigation. All charges against the former AIPAC employees were dropped in 2009.^[139]

OK? Perfectly legal? I’m not from Missouri, but I am of a skeptical turn of mind. I believe that they reason AIPAC has never been required to register under FARA by the DoJ is because of the Israel Lobby’s overwhelming influence over the official actions of the US government. Really? Yeah, really. Does that make what they’re doing “perfectly legal”? No, it doesn’t. It just means they get away with it. What a concept, hey? If you don’t get that, go back and reread.

Again, political activities?

One critic, former Congressman Brian Baird, who "had admired Israel since I was a kid," but became alienated from AIPAC, argued that "When key votes are cast, the question on the House floor, troublingly, is often not, 'What is the right thing to do for the United States of America?', but 'How is AIPAC going to score this?'" He cited a 2009 House resolution he opposed condemning the Goldstone Report on civilian deaths. "When we had the vote, I said, 'We have member after member coming to the floor to vote on a resolution they've never read, about a report they've never seen, in a place they've never been.'"^[15] Baird worries that AIPAC members and supporters believe that they're "supporting Israel" when they are "actually backing policies" such as the killing of civilians in Gaza, "that are antithetical to its highest values and, ultimately, destructive for the country."

And there’s more at the Wikipedia link.

AIPAC gets away with it. But by hook or by crook they’ll get Ritter. He’ll pay the price for criticizing Israel. That’s how America works.