Scott Ritter, Why Matt Gaetz Matters

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Matt Gaetz to be the next Attorney General of the United States. Many Americans are appalled and offended by this choice. I find it one of the best nominations made by Trump. Let me tell you why. And please take note—it is personal.

Let’s get the easy part over with upfront.

On paper, Matt Gaetz isn’t qualified to be the Attorney General of the United States.

His résumé is paper thin.

And he operates under a dark cloud of controversy which, under normal circumstances, would be automatically disqualifying.

And I’ll add this—if Matt Gaetz is found criminally guilty of any of the things he has been alleged to have committed, then he is, in fact, automatically disqualified.

But herein lies the rub: he has not been found guilty of anything.

And in America, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

The House Ethics Committee is not a court of law.

It is, however, a highly politicized body fully capable of being weaponized to bring down one of the most polarizing figures in modern American political history.

There are those clamoring for the House Ethics Committee to release a report that had been prepared concerning various allegations of potentially illegal conduct on the part of Matt Gaetz.

There is no doubt that this report was prepared by the political enemies of Matt Gaetz, both Republican (remember, he single-handedly brought down a Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy) and Democrat alike.

Matt Gaetz has resigned from his seat in Congress.

The Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction over Matt Gaetz.

This politicized report should be consigned to the trash bin of history.

If Matt Gaetz has committed a crime, then he should be charged in criminal court.

Otherwise, sit down and shut up.

Why, one may ask, would I take such a position?

Back in August 1998 I was informed by Larry Sanchez, the CIA’s liaison to the US Mission to the United Nations, that if I resigned my position as a Chief Weapons Inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the FBI would, quote, “fuck me in the ass” for the rest of my life.

I resigned on a matter of principle, fed up with years of US interference in the disarmament work me and my fellow UNSCOM inspectors were tasked with conducting.

Larry Sanchez was not lying.

The same day I submitted my resignation, the FBI leaked to CBS News the fact that it was investigating me on charges of spying on behalf of Israel.

Left unsaid by Dan Rather, the CBS Nightly newscaster, was that the FBI investigation was related to intelligence liaison work I was conducting on behalf of UNSCOM, based upon an agreement reached between the CIA (yes, Larry Sanchez) and the UNSCOM Chairman, Rolf Ekeus, back in July 1995, and sustained by Richard Butler when he took over from Ambassador Ekeus in the summer of 1997. The FBI investigation was opened in 1996 at the behest of disgruntled CIA employees in the Iraq Operations Group (IOG) who were angry over the access to Israeli intelligence I was gaining through this cooperation. The IOG openly sabotaged cooperation between UNSCOM and the King of Jordan involving the interception of Russian guidance and control devices that I had coordinated using an intelligence tip-off from Israel, and did the same to a similar intelligence cooperation between UNSCOM and Romania, together with the British MI-6 and Israeli intelligence, to block an Iraqi attempt to covertly buy a controlling share of a Romanian aerospace company that manufactured missile components.

The FBI had been following me since 1995, shortly after the cooperation with Israel began. At the heart of the matter was film produced by American U-2 spy planes operating on behalf of UNSCOM while overflying Iraq. I was running the U-2 project for UNSCOM at the time, helping direct the flights of the U-2 and coordinating with the US regarding the interpretation of the film. The CIA, however, was unresponsive to my requests for better imagery and dedicated photographic analysts. As such, I had reached out to Israel to see if they would help with the interpretation of the film and, as a byproduct of this relationship, open their intelligence files to answer any questions that emerged from the examination of the film.

This angered the CIA’s IOG, who turned me into the FBI, claiming I was turning classified material over to Israel.

The problem was the IOG was wrong—the film in question, marked “Secret” by the CIA, was automatically declassified when it was turned over to UNSCOM. Thus, even thought the film was marked “Secret—Releasable to UNSCOM,’ this marking had no legal weight—the film was unclassified for the simple fact that UNSCOM personnel working with the imagery had no security clearances.

When the FBI told Larry Sanchez in the summer of 1998 that they were going to arrest me, Larry went to the CIA’s legal counsel and had a letter prepared which explained this to the FBI.

This means that when I resigned, the FBI knew that there was no legal case against me.

And yet they released the existence of the investigation to CBS News for political reasons—to “fuck me in the ass” for daring to resign against the desires of the US government.

This is not a lawful duty of the FBI, and yet it is exactly the kind of work it engages in daily across the United States—politically motivated investigations using manufactured “evidence” designed to destroy the lives of American citizens who were politically inconvenient to the powers that be.

I eventually prevailed upon the FBI to drop the charges, but not before they made gainful employment impossible for nearly three years and cost me a fortune in legal fees to hire a lawyer capable of taking on the Southern District of New York.

The FBI is in the business of destroying lives of law-abiding Americans whose exercise of free speech is found offensive by their political masters.

The FBI investigated me for making a documentary film, “In Shifting Sands,” which made the case that Iraq had been disarmed by UN weapons inspectors. Because this movie embraced a narrative which contradicted the case for war being made by the US government, I was targeted for character assassination.

It was the FBI which, in 2003, leaked to the press information about legal matters that had been dismissed by a judge and sealed by a New York court order.

The purpose of the leak was to make me “radioactive” to news organizations so that I would not be able to publicly question the case for war being made by the US government on the eve of the decision to invade and occupy Iraq.

The FBI investigated me in 2006 when I dared challenge the US government’s assertions regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

The FBI is currently investigating me regarding efforts to counter the US governments efforts to promote Russophobia, accusing me of violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act simply because I traveled to Russia and returned home to report the truth of what I had witnessed to the American people.

The FBI coordinated with the State Department to seize my passport without cause, simply to prevent me from continuing to travel to Russia.

The FBI executed a search warrant on my home on August 7, 2024, based upon false statements submitted to a federal judge to sustain the premise of probable cause.

During the execution of this search warrant, the FBI seized my archive of documents from my time as an UNSCOM weapons inspector, on the grounds that documents clearly marked “Secret-Releasable to UNSCOM” were somehow classified material, despite the CIA’s letter to the FBI stating the opposite.

The FBI, together with the State Department, has coordinated with the Office of the President in Ukraine and Ukrainian intelligence to put my name on three separate “hit” lists, marking me for death.

My crime: exercising my free speech rights to be critical of US policy regarding Ukraine.

I have been labeled an “information terrorist” by the Ukrainian government through programs that are funded in full by US taxpayers and facilitated by both the State Department and the FBI.

The culprits in question within the FBI operate in the National Security Division.

This is the same National Security Division which manufactured the Russian collusion case against President Trump in 2016—Operation Crossfire Hurricane.

The same National Security Division which planted scores of plainclothes undercover agents in the crowds on January 6, 2021, leading to the storming of the capitol.

The same National Security Division which raided Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

The same National Security Division which is charged with investigating the attempt on President Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, this past July—and yet can’t yet make a finding.

The FBI’s National Security Division is responsive to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) National Security Division.

The National Security Division of the DOJ oversees the persecution of the Uhuru-3 Black Nationalist Movement, using FARA as a sword to punish them for politically inconvenient free speech.

The National Security Division’s of the DOJ and FBI are the greatest domestic threats to the American people and the concept of Constitutional rule of law today.

Matt Gaetz knows this.

Matt Gaetz has eviscerated the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and the sitting Attorney General, Merrick Garland, during Congressional hearings.

Matt Gaetz is the only person who has the motive and ability to take on the National Security Division’s of the DOJ and FBI and get justice for the American people whose lives have been turned upside down because of their distinctly illegal activities.

In 1998, the FBI promised to “fuck me in the ass” for daring to speak out against bad US policy in Iraq.

Today, some 26 years later, the FBI is still working to carry out that promise.

The FBI terrorizes innocent Americans daily for the “crime” of saying things their political masters object to.

Matt Gaetz was investigated by the FBI regarding the allegations that are the subject of the House Ethics Committee report.

The FBI did not press charges.

Matt Gaetz has promised to hold the FBI and Department of Justice to account for the crimes they have committed against him.

For the crimes they have committed against President Trump.

For the crimes that they have committed against the American people.

For the crimes they have committed against me.

You see, it is personal.

Not just for those who have been directly caught up in the abuses committed by the FBI and DOJ.

But for all Americans.

The FBI and DOJ, as they are currently organized and operated, are an insult to us all.

They are an affront to the Constitution.

Matt Gaetz wants to hold them to account.

And we should do everything possible to give him the chance to do just that by supporting his nomination as Attorney General.

We are in the midst of the Trump Revolution, and Matt Gaetz is as revolutionary as they come.