On June 3, 2024, Scott Ritter was in New York’s JFK airport about to board a flight to Russia, when he was pulled out of the boarding line by three Customers and Border Patrol officers. The officers seized Ritter’s passport and told him they were doing so on orders from the US State Department. The officers said they had no other information as to why or who in the State Department made this decision, but he should contact them to find out the details. The police officers did not present a search warrant or write Ritter a receipt for his confiscated passport. They escorted him out of the security zone into the airport lobby, where they told him he was free to go.
Scott RItter had planned to attend the 2024 Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia from June 5-8. This is one of the world’s largest economic forums. The 2024 event was attended by more than 17,000 people from 136 countries including heads of state and government officials from 45 countries. In attendance were 4,000 media representatives from some 33 countries. Ritter was able to participate in the SPIEF panel discussion via Zoom. Once the forum ended, Scott planned to spend forty days touring Russia to make a documentary.
On the evening of June 2nd at 5:21pm, Ritter posted a Tweet on X to Anna Neistat of the Clooney Foundation: ‘I hear you’re trying to get arrest warrants issued for Russian “propagandists.” Here I am. In your face. If telling the truth about Russia makes me a propagandist in your book, then I accept the title. Your buddies Ukraine think so—they’ve had me on a kill list [for] years charged with the same “crime.” Bring it on. I’ll school you on the First Amendment. I’ll end up bankrupting your pathetic little operation. You guys suck as an organization. You have zero concept of what free speech is. Try and arrest me and you’ll find out. In spades. It’s war.’
Does this Tweet have anything to do with Ritter being pulled off a plane and having his passport seized or is the timing of it merely coincidence? So what are the reasons behind the seizure of Scott RItter’s passport? A look at his life and accomplishments may provide us with some answers.
Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He was one of the first Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty inspectors to visit the Soviet Union in 1988. He served as chief US and UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998.
He is the author of numerous books including Disarmament In The Time Of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union; a Personal Journal (2020), Scorpion King: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump (2020), Deal Of The Century: How Iran Blocked the West’s Road to War (2018) and Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (2005).
RItter has long been the target of the US government, who has attempted to silence him sInce the late 1990s. Since 2022, He has been a very vocal critic of the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. He has exposed the fraud of the US NATO narrative that the conflict is an “unprovoked invasion by Russia” and that Ukraine is “a democracy”. He elaborated on the facts that Russia was forced to launch its Special Military Operation after exhausting all diplomatic options to bring peace to the Donbass Region and keep Ukraine out of NATO. He has also been a critic of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza with full US military support. His Twitter account was suspended in 2022 and YouTube channels removed in 2023.
RItter is loved and respected in Russia as he brings a message of peace and demonstrates to the Russian people that some Americans don’t war with Russia. Scott Ritter has been an RT contributor, writing about Russia, the Ukraine war, the Middle East, international security, military affairs and arms control.
He has been bringing that message of peace and exposing the lies of US propaganda to American audiences on numerous YouTube and Rumble channels, including Judge Napolitano, Danny Haiphong, Richard Medhurst and Jimmy Dore. His own Rumble channel is Scott Ritter / US Tour of Duty with The Scott Ritter Show and Ask The Inspector. These shows were banned from YouTube in August 2023, after the platform claimed the shows violated its terms of service for using hate speech.
His channels were removed without any prior warning. RItter said “There was never any hate speech involved in any of the episodes of ‘The Scott Ritter Show’, unless one views unique content from silenced voices hateful,” and called the decision “the latest in a series of actions by YouTube to silence Russian voices.”
On August 6, 2023, Scott RItter was a speaker at the Humanity For Peace Rally in New York City that was hosted by the International Peace Coalition. He has also been a guest speaker for the United National Antiwar Coalition. On December 2, 2023, he was the first speaker at the Center For Political Innovation Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon.
Outside of the Democratic and Republican parties, Scott RItter is well respected across the political divide as an expert on the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine, who has exposed the lies of Western Legacy Media and the US National Security State. He has been one of loudest critics of US imperialism and of the fascist Ukrainian government that honors WW2 Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera (who died in 1959) as a national hero. The giant torch march celebrating Bandera’s birthday on January 1, 2022 demonstrates the rise of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine before the Russian invasion. Scott Ritter has talked extensively about Ukrainian Nazism and its corrupt puppet President Volodymyr Zelensky.
This has earned him a place on the ‘Enemies of Ukraine’ Kill List on the Myrotvorets website. This is literally a kill list that provides an individual’s name, portrait, address, phone number and personal information. Numerous journalists, political commentators and celebrities are on the list including Jimmy Dore, Jackson Hinkle, Aaron Mate, Anya Parampil, Tulsi Gabbard, Roger Waters, Helga LaRouche and Tucker Carlson. The Russian journalist Darya Dugina, who was assassinated in Moscow in August 2022 by a female SBU agent and member of the Nazi Azov Battalion, remains on this kill list after her death. There is the bright red Ukrainian word meaning “liquidated” displayed over her portrait.
The Myrotvorets Center claims to be “an independent, non-governmental organization established by a group of researchers, lawyers, journalists, teachers, military men and experts investigating of the crimes against the national security of Ukraine, peace, humanity and international law.” This claim must be called into question especially considering the words Langley, VA, USA are displayed in the upper right corner of the home page. Langley, Virginia is the headquarters of the CIA. The website also states “Information for law enforcement authorities and special services about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers.” How can any country claiming to be a democracy that supports human rights, label journalists and commentators as terrorists and mark them for death? This website exposes the sinister nature of the Banderite regime in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation has also labeled Ritter as a Russian propagandist, even though it is much harder to find his name on their website. The CCD is a website that attempts to debunk even the most fact-based information about Ukraine, that its critics often cite. It claims that Nazism in Ukraine and the country’s deep respect for WW2 Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera is mere Russian propaganda,
In 2015, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed an amendment to the 2016 NDAA prohibiting sending weapons to the Neo-Nazi Battalion, which has controlled Ukraine’s National Guard. The Ukrainian government gave a resort in Mariupol to the Azov Battalion as their home and base for terrorist operations. They were tasked with guarding the city which has an important seaport for the Black Sea. In May 2022, Russia defeated the AFU in Mariupol. This force was largely composed of the Azov Battalion. During the four day long Azovstal surrender, Russian soldiers ordered their AFU prisoners to remove their shirts. Displayed on many of the AFU soldier’s arms were Nazi symbol tattoos.
In April 2022, Scott Ritter had his Twitter account permanently suspended for exposing the flaws of Ukraine’s accusations that Russian troops were responsible for war crimes in Bucha. It was long after Elon Musk took over Twitter (now X) that Ritter’s account was finally restored. The Twitter Files proved that Twitter was suspending accounts and removing posts, under strong pressure from US government officials.
Scott Ritter has endured and overcome far worse accusations and even a criminal conviction and jail time for a crime he claims he did not commit but was framed for. He was arrested and charged in 2009 for on-line solicitation and inappropriate contact with a minor. He was convicted in 2011 of five charges including unlawful contact with a minor, indecent exposure and criminal solicitation. He never met the female in person, who he communicated with over the internet. The female police officer conducting the sting operation allegedly told Ritter she was 15 years old. He was sentenced for one and a half to five and a half years. He served a prison sentence from March 2012 to September 2014, when he was released on parole.
In an interview on the Jimmy Dore Show on June 5 , 2024, Ritter goes into some detail on his past conviction and how it could possibly be related to his passport seizure. He maintains he was innocent and the charges were a way to destroy his credibility. He says that pedophiles are often killed in prison by gang members, so upon entering the prison he went straight to the Crips and the Bloods to show them his case file. He said if they still didn’t believe he was innocent, they could take him out in the prison yard and try to beat him up, at which point he would kill every one of them, thanks to his US Marine training. After reading his case file, he claims the gang members acknowledged that he got screwed by the system. He claims the warden believed in his innocence as well.
Was Ritter really framed? In the lead up to the Iraq War he was very vocal in stating that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The 2009 sting operation was not the first time he was arrested and charged for illegal contact with a minor. In a 2001 sting operation, he allegedly attempted to arrange a meeting with a 16 year old girl. He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child. He completed six months of pretrial probation and the charges were dropped with the records sealed.
So was Ritter guilty as charged or did he believe he was communicating with young adult women over the internet? Without delving deeply into the history of his case, it’s impossible to know the answer. Either way, Scott Ritter has been punished and served his sentence for his alleged crime. Should his past conviction discredit everything else he has done and his vast knowledge of geopolitics that he has written books about and discussed? His popularity proves many people don’t consider his past conviction relevant to his current work.
In the JImmy Dore interview on June 5, 2024, Scott Ritter says there is a new US law requiring a special stamp inside the passport of a convicted sex offender. His passport was old enough not to contain that stamp. Why wouldn’t the State Department simply contact Ritter by mail or wait until his passport expires to implement the change?
The fact that Scott Ritter was not provided with any answer for why his passport was seized is a violation of his rights. The police officers who seized his passport did not have a warrant, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The timing of the seizure is also suspicious and may be politically motivated.
In spite of it, Scott Ritter is a tough guy and when he gets knocked down he gets up and keeps fighting. He has shown true leadership in the fight against US imperialism that seeks full spectrum dominance. The world is standing on the precipice of nuclear armageddon, while the Biden Administration arms Ukraine in its losing battle that has already cost nearly 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers their lives. The world’s real criminals continue to walk free, while arming Nazis in Ukraine and facilitating Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Ritter is huge threat to the military industrial congressional media complex.
Thank you Scott Ritter for educating us. You have been a model citizen for standing up to a morally bankrupt government that can’t even play by its own rules, while completely ignoring international law. Also check out his Substack Scott Ritter Extra.