CN condemns FBI search of CN columnist’s home

By Consortium News

Consortium News condemns in the strongest terms the FBI raid on the home of CN columnist Scott Ritter.

Federal agents on Thursday seized Ritter’s electronic equipment and several boxes of paper files from his Albany, New York, area home, suspecting the former U.N. weapons inspector of violating the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In a video posted to his Substack page, Ritter said that typically, in cases of alleged FARA violations, authorities send a letter to the person concerned informing them that the investigation is underway. They don’t send a bunch of FBI agents to the door with a warrant to search and remove potential evidence.

The warrant, a copy of which Ritter released, only called for the removal of electronic devices, but the agents, who Ritter said acted professionally, also removed boxes of United Nations paper files from his time as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s. As Ritter says in the video, U.N. documents are never classified and could have nothing to do with the alleged FARA case against him.

“The idea that this is normal procedure is absurd in the extreme. I am not a foreign agent. I am a journalist. And that is the way we have to frame this whole thing. What the FBI did yesterday, what the United States government did yesterday, was a frontal attack not only on freedom of speech, but freedom of the press,” Ritter said in the video.

Ritter says he is being targeted because of his freelance work for Russian media outlets. In the wake of Russiagate, the U.S. Justice Department in 2017 required media companies funded by the Russian government to register as foreign agents. But only top executives at RT and Sputnik are required to register, not employees or freelancers like Ritter.

“They are seeking to intimidate a journalist with a long journalistic experience, to intimidate this journalist, myself, to prevent him from engaging in activities such as researching and publishing articles and documents critical of US policy in Ukraine, supporting Russian goals,” he said.

“Just a quick reminder. The U.S. courts have determined that, under FARA, the coincidence of ideas between an individual like me and a foreign government, Russia, does not impact FARA,” Ritter said.

“The fact that the Russian government and I have convergent views on crucial issues of the moment could therefore indicate that we are both on the right side of history, while I am not an agent of the Russian government. In fact, it shows that we are both on the right side of history,” he said.

Because of his views, Ritter was placed on a “blacklist” by the Ukrainian government. Local CBS News in Albany, New York, apparently tipped off by the FBI, filmed agents removing boxes from Ritter’s home. In the process, they revealed his home address and license plate number.

Ritter said in the video (posted on CN) that a police SWAT team was also dispatched to his home Thursday evening and left without incident.

Ritter said:

“I am a journalist. I have the constitutional right to freedom of speech, coupled with freedom of the press, to do what I do. And to remain silent means that I have allowed the United States government to intimidate a journalist into silence. That is simply not going to happen.

Why would the FBI do this? I think we can’t ask that question without stating the obvious. What I say and what I do strikes fear into some people in Washington, whether it’s the State Department, the CIA, the White House, the Justice Department; it strikes fear into the Ukrainian government.

Consortium News calls on the Ministry of Justice to immediately cease its intimidation of one of our columnists, as this constitutes state interference in the functioning of the media and a threat to freedom of the press.

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