👉 Emojies and some graphics by AGelbert. 👈🕯️ 🗽 Scott Ritter ExtraAgust 14, 2024
The FBI's 🦍 Raid on 🕊️ Peace
FBI agents load boxes containing material seized during the execution of a search warrant on the author’s residence on August 7, 2024.SNIPPET:
Shortly before 2 pm on August 5, 2024, attorneys from the Northern District of New York, accompanied by agents from the National Security Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), gathered in the chambers of Christian F. Hummel, a United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of New York. Hummel was appointed to this position in September 2012. Prior to his appointment, Hummel, a graduate of Albany Law School, had a career in civil litigation as a trial lawyer, before being elected as the Town Justice for the town of East Greenbush. Hummel moved on to be a Rensselaer County Family Court Judge and, later, the Rensselaer County Surrogate, the position he held at the time of his appointment as a US Magistrate Judge.
The US attorneys presented Hummel with a series of affidavits from the FBI and possibly other US government agencies which they maintained established probable cause for the federal law enforcement to conduct a search of my residence for “any computers, computer equipment, cellular telephones, and/or any other electronic media or storage devices.”
According to the affidavits (which were not included as part of the search warrant presented to me by the FBI agents), these electronic devices contained information they believed would advance their case that I was operating as an unregistered agent of a foreign government in violation of the Foreign Agent and Registration Act.
Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audience questions on
Ep. 185 of
Ask the Inspector on Thursday, August 15 at 8 PM ET.
Based upon the questions asked of me by the FBI during the conduct of this search, the foreign government in question was the Russian Federation.
The search warrant required that the search be conducted in the daytime between 6 am and 10 pm, which meant that the US Attorneys and the FBI either did not seek to establish cause for a nighttime raid or were unable to convince Judge Hummel that such cause existed. Likewise, the US Attorneys and the FBI did not make a case to delay notification of their execution of the search warrant.
In short, this search warrant was as non-confrontational a process as one can have when 20-plus armed US government agents invade your home and rifle through your life’s possessions, and those of your family.
The FBI agents involved in both the search and the questioning were professional and courteous throughout the five-plus hour event.
A couple of takeaways from a cursory analysis of this search warrant. First, the FBI was most likely not looking for anything related to the active commission of a crime—I was not handcuffed, and the interview process was completely voluntary on my part—they did not read me my rights, nor was I asked to waive my rights. This suggests that neither the US Attorneys nor the FBI were operating based on any federal indictment—if such an indictment existed and had been used as the foundation of this search, the tenor of the proceedings would have been far different. Indeed, at no time did the FBI suggest that I had committed a crime—they simply said there was concern within the US government that I was engaged in activities that fell under the FARA statute.
Second, it appeared to me that the FBI was on a fishing expedition. The two special agents who questioned me each held thick folders filled with documents that they would refer to during the interview. On one occasion, after they completed a particular line of questioning, the two agents stared at each other, as if they were struggling with how to proceed. “You guys clearly have something on your mind,” I said. “Just say what it is. I’m being completely cooperative here. Ask your question, and I’ll answer it to the best of my ability.”
At that point, one of the agents reached into her folder and pulled out copies of an email exchange I had back in February 2023 with Igor Shaktar-ool, a senior counselor with the Russian Embassy.
The author with Russian diplomats inside the Russian Embassy, February 21, 2023. Igor Shakra-ool is on the far right.The production of this email demonstrated that the FBI had most likely obtained a FISA warrant which enabled them, directly or indirectly, to monitor my communications. This did not necessarily mean that they had received permission to monitor me directly—as a US citizen, I have constitutionally-derived rights of privacy which preclude such monitoring void of very specific justification and authorization, none of which could possibly have been met given the facts of the case. (Moreover, if there had been a FISA warrant issued, and this product was the result, then I doubt the FBI agent would have shared it with me in such a non-confrontational manner.)
The FBI is, however, allowed to monitor the emails of foreign diplomats, of whom Igor Shaktar-ool is one. As an American citizen caught up in any intercepted communication, my identity would normally be “masked,” meaning that anyone who encountered the intercepted email would only know me as a faceless, nameless “US citizen.”
At some point in time, however, my actions regarding Russia must have reached a level of concern where my identity was “unmasked” so that the data contained in the emails could be more thoroughly evaluated.
And this “unmasking” undoubtedly led to the FBI seeking a court order to gain access to the emails in question outside the FISA procedures, freeing up the information contained within to be used by a wider audience.
This appears to be the case.
Back on June 3, I had received an email from Google informing me that they had “received and responded to a legal process issued by the FBI compelling the release of information related to Google accounts that are linked to or associated with a specific identifier.” Google’s response, the email noted, “included information about your account.” Google had been prohibited from disclosing this information to me by a “court order.” This order had either expired or had been rescinded, and Google was now permitted to disclose their receipt of the FBI request.
I’m not a big believer in coincidences. June 3 was also the date the 🦍
Customs and Border Protection agents seized my passport as I was preparing to board a flight at JFK airport that was to take me to Russia, where I was scheduled to participate in the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum before embarking on a 40-plus day tour of Russia. As was the case with the search warrant,
if I was under suspicion of having committed a crime, I would have been arrested and detained once they seized my passport. 
The fact that the
🐗 Customs and Border Protection agents allowed me to leave unhindered pointed to the existence of an ongoing federal law enforcement investigation which feared the unmonitored connectivity I would have with Russians, including Russian government officials, while travelling in Russia.
Igor Shaktar-ool and most of the Russian Embassy staff use Gmail as their email provider.To legally seize my passport in the manner they did, the US government would be revealing that they had an ongoing federal investigation against me. This would require the unsealing of the court order related to that investigation. Which would free up Google to send me the email about the FBI investigation.
Life is stranger than fiction.
Now to the email chain in question.
I had visited the Russian Embassy, at my request, on February 20, to inform the Russian government of my intent to travel to Russia later in the spring as part of a book tour to promote the publication of my recently released memoir—Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms control and the end of the Soviet Union—of my time as an inspector implementing the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in the Soviet Union back in 1988-1990. The US had withdrawn from the INF treaty back in August 2019, an action that I believed accelerated the risk of nuclear war. At the time, I was promoting the idea of a major anti-nuclear war rally here in the United States, and I was thinking about trying to organize similar rallies in Russia.
As I explained to the Russians, my background as a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who had worked in the Soviet Union in that capacity would undoubtedly raise alarms in the Kremlin. My purpose in visiting the Russian Embassy—which was done on my request and my initiative—was to answer any questions the Russians might have about my upcoming trip so that there were no misperceptions or concerns about motive. The last thing I wanted, I told the Russian diplomats I met with, was to be viewed as a threat by the Russian government.
My mission in travelling to Russia was to 
promote better relations 
by reminding a Russian audience that once upon a time our two nations actively worked together in the furtherance of the cause of peace by eliminating the very weapons—nuclear-armed missiles—that threatened our mutual existence. The story of my experience as a weapons inspector in the Soviet Union, in my opinion, served as an example of not only what was, but what could—and, in my opinion, should—be again.
I wanted to go to Russia, engage in a conversation with the Russian people about furthering nuclear arms control and bettering relations, and then return to the United States and educate the American people about the Russian reality as I saw it. 
Full
LONG TRUTH FILLED article:
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/the-fbis-raid-on-peace
