Yesterday, August 8^th, a team of FBI investigators raided the home of anti-war, anti-imperialist writer and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. The investigators brought a search warrant under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, accusing Ritter of attempting to illegally sway American opinion on behalf of the Russian government. This is not the first recent attack on American anti-imperialists. Last year, similar charges were used to raid and prosecute the Uhuru Movement for their anti-imperialist activities. In June, Scott Ritter was forced off of a plane and had his passport confiscated to prevent him from traveling to Russia. More recently, CPI founder Caleb Maupin’s book Kamala Harris and the Future of America was temporarily removed from Amazon on questionable grounds. While the US government claims to be opposing foreign influence, these act of political repression seems more like an attempt to prevent Americans from seeing the truth about their own government’s criminal actions in Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, and around the world.

In this raid, the FBI spent over 5 hours removing boxes of materials from Ritter’s home in Delmar, and confiscated his personal computer and phone. Ritter was questioned, but was not detained. In Ritter’s opinion, he was most likely targeted based on his writings for media outlets RT and Sputnik, under the allegation that receiving pay for journalistic work for Russian companies constitutes illegal work for the Russian government. Ritter, meanwhile, disputes that his arrangements with these organizations are any different than his work for any other news organization, and calls this an attack on Americans’ right to free speech.

CPI founder Caleb Maupin called this raid “clearly politically motivated” in this video, saying that “they want anti-imperialists to be intimidated… Scott wants us not to have a nuclear confrontation. Scott is defending the Palestinians. He’s defending Iran, he’s defending Russia and China, he’s defending the American working class that does not want war. He’s speaking up in support of our military that doesn’t want to go die in some war for Wall Street oil profits… Now they’re raiding his home.” Maupin reiterated the importance of uniting against the imperialist war machine, calling Scott Ritter a key voice for peace. “We’ve just got to stand in solidarity with Scott Ritter,” Maupin concluded. “Oppose the FBI raid political repression. An injury to one is an injury to all… I’m with Scott Ritter!”

Ritter once worked for US military intelligence, and for the United Nations. Ritter was one of the UN weapons inspectors sent to investigate Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and he went against the grain by reporting honestly that Iraq had fundamentally disarmed. Ritter has now come to oppose most activities of the US military – not on grounds of anti-Americanism, but from his belief that true patriotism requires speaking out against foreign policy that will be disastrous both for the world and at home. Author Kim Petersen discusses this and the recent raid in his Countercurrents.org article “What Does It Mean to Be a Patriot?” Petersen writes: “The world needs contrarian voices to be free to speak, and not just contrarian voices, all voices… I have no problem standing with Ritter against imperialism, warring, and Zionism.”

Ritter issued a statement, viewable here, saying: “I have no problems with the people who executed the search warrant. I do have a problem with the search warrant itself. Let’s just be very clear: no crime has been committed. I am not a foreign agent, I am not in violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and they know this. This was an act of intimidation by the US government, designed to have a chilling effect.”

The Center for Political Innovation opposes all attempts to suppress Americans’ right to free speech. This recent FBI intimidation of Scott Ritter is a concerning move, but it emphasizes the importance of standing together to demand our rights as Americans. If you believe Americans deserve the right to speak and express themselves freely, CPI encourages you to use your voice to speak up for Scott Ritter and other targets of US imperialism. Solidarity protects all of us.