U.S. State Department seizes former Marine Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter’s passport without explanation

Ritter, an outspoken critic of America’s foreign policy, was set to speak in Russia

The U.S. State Department has stopped Scott Ritter, a former intelligence officer with the Marines and UN weapons inspector, from traveling to Russia to speak at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) which is taking place this week, June 5-8.

Ritter was starting the boarding process on Monday in New York when members of U.S. Customs and Border Control stopped him from getting on the plane and seized his passport without explanation. Ritter was set to fly to Istanbul, Turkey where he would have caught a connecting flight to Russia.

Talking to RT, Ritter said:

“I was boarding the flight. Three [police] officers pulled me aside. They took my passport. When asked why, they said ‘orders of the State Department.’ They had no further information for me. They pulled my bags off the plane, then escorted me out of the airport. They kept my passport.”

Maria Zakharova, a Russian spokeswoman, said:

“Was this done in accordance with the First Amendment, or the Fourth.”

RT noted that Ritter had visited Russia recently, in January, without incident.

Ritter has been an outspoken critic of America’s interventionist foreign policy since his time as a weapons inspector during the Iraq War as he helped reveal that the U.S. lied about weapons of mass destruction.

The State Department has refused to explain its actions. It told Sputnik News on Tuesday:

“We cannot comment on the status of the passport of a private US citizen.”

Ritter elaborated on the event with Judge Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday. Napolitano was also planning to speak at the SPIEF but cancelled his plans, for unrelated reasons.

Ritter said he was just about to “cross the threshold into the airplane” when the border patrol agents stopped him and told him they were seizing his passport. Ritter said:

“I said on what authority. They said, ‘on the orders of the United States State Department.’ I said who in the State Department. They said, ‘We don't know.’ I said, well who ordered you to do this. They said, ‘We don't know. We can't tell you. We're not authorized to tell you.’ They wouldn't give me a receipt for the passport. They just said, ‘You got to contact the State Department.’ I said who in the State Department. They said, ‘We don't know, you're going to have to figure that one out.’ Then they got my bags off the airplane and escorted me out of the security zone.”

Ritter went on to talk about the Ukrainian hit list, which he is on, through the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation which is “directed by the State Department,” he said. He said this is also at the “direction of the U.S. Congress” which is allocating millions of American taxpayer dollars to this anti-American organization.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA official and member of the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, called this action by the State Department “illegal” and “foolish.”

Johnson said a passport can only be revoked for three reasons including criminal evidence, unpaid taxes of at the request of law enforcement. On a request from law enforcement, he said that “implies that there is some criminal case working against” whoever is having their passport revoked.

In Ritter’s case, the State Department has not stated it’s reason, and Johnson said he does not believe any of the three reasons described above applies. He said:

“Scott's only offense in this, that I can determined, is his outspoken opposition to U.S. policy in Ukraine and in Palestine-Israel.”

Johnson said this is “illegal and without cause” by the Biden administration as way to silence a critic, and “when you're taking an American citizen’s passport, you got to tell them what are the charges, under what conditions, not just because we're the government and we say so.” He said Ritter will have good lawyers, and the State Department is sure to lose if Ritter takes them to court.

The action was also “foolish,” Johnson said, because it’s “going to gain Scott some attention and some coverage from the mainstream media which up to this point have gone out of their way to avoid any of us who are speaking out about the foolishness of US policy.”

On that one, I have to kindly disagree. I have looked for coverage on this and have not found one mainstream media story on it. The alternative media is also largely quiet. Time may prove Johnson right, but I don’t think it will.

Johnson suggested we’re on the verge of provoking nuclear war with Russia because of the lies the war machine keeps telling themselves that “we’re the biggest” and “we’re the strongest.” He said:

“What we're facing in the United States is the United States is in the process of turning itself in to the old Soviet Union. And by contrast, we're finding that Russia has become a new safe haven for Christians and for whistleblowers.”