The government is targeting Scott Ritter and other critics of America’s endless wars, the former aide to Joe Biden has said
According to Tara Reade, a former aide to Joe Biden and an RT contributor, the United States only allows freedom of speech if individuals express opinions that align with government directives.
Reade appeared live on RT on Thursday to discuss the search of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter’s home in New York state by federal agents and state police on Wednesday.
Both Reade and Ritter, who is now a journalist, were invited to speak at the 27th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, but “unfortunately the federal agents took him off the plane and confiscated his passport,” Reade recalled.
She noted that US authorities never returned Ritter’s passport, stating that “Usually, that indicates that someone is under investigation because they take away your passport.”
Reade claimed that the Washington government has been “going after Scott Ritter for years” since “he spoke out against the war in Iraq and revealed that… the US government lied about the weapons of mass destruction.”
Reade argued that the persecution of Ritter, whose views on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Israel’s war in Gaza differ significantly from those of the White House, is “just a pattern of what you are seeing in the US, which is the surveillance state and authoritative government.”
“We have the illusion of free speech. We have that illusion of a right to travel. But in reality, it is only allowed if we say what the US wants people to say, otherwise you are at risk,” Reade said.
She also suggested that, since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate last month, the party is “going back to the old Russiagate hysteria.”
Ritter, also an RT contributor, described the search of his property as an “act of intimidation” against him. The journalist stated in a Telegram video message on Thursday that authorities appear to be “primarily concerned” about his “relationship” with RT and the news agency Sputnik.
The 61-year-old revealed that FBI agents accused him of working “on behalf of the Russian government” to manipulate American public opinion. Ritter dismissed these accusations as “absurd in the extreme.” He insisted that he was “doing nothing wrong,” and was just “an American citizen, holding my government accountable and exercising the rights given to me by the Constitution.”
In 2020, Tara Reade accused then-Senator Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her when she worked as an aide on his team in 1993. She moved to Russia last year due to concerns for her safety in the US.