Posted on 01/05/2021 6:42:32 AM PST by MarvinStinson
The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft removed an article late last week written by a former United Nations official who was convicted of engaging in lurid acts with a child.
The isolationist think tank bankrolled by billionaires George Soros and Charles Koch sparked on uproar on Dec. 28 when it published an article by Scott Ritter, a former high-ranking U.N. weapons inspector who was arrested in the mid-2000s as part of an internet underage-sex sting. Ritter was arrested at least three times for this behavior.
The Quincy Institute removed the piece, which downplayed the threat posed by Russia's hack attacks on the U.S. government, after online observers chided the group for publishing works from a convicted child molester. An archived copy of Ritter's article, as well as his online biography, remain available on Quincy's website, and the organization's official Twitter account retweeted a post from Ritter promoting his article, which he posted on the Alternative World website.
Ritter is a contributor to Russia Today, a Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet. Ritter was a frequent critic of the George W. Bush administration and a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity group, which was formed in 2003 to challenge the Bush administration's assertion that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Ritter worked for that group alongside former U.S. diplomat and Quincy Institute expert Chas Freeman, who has a history of pushing conspiracy theories that accuse Jewish Americans of controlling the U.S. foreign-policy establishment.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has embraced kooky conspiracy theories, claiming in 2016 that there was no evidence Russia attempted to sway the presidential election that ushered Donald Trump into office. A 2013 memorandum from the group claimed the Syrian government was not responsible for a brutal chemical attack near Damascus, despite evidence indicating otherwise. The media labeled those claims as outlandish.
The organization is well-known for its anti-Israel bent, having blasted then-president Barack Obama in 2010 for putting what it called "misplaced trust" in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his warning about Iran's nuclear program.
"Washington leaves it up to the Israelis to decide whether and when to attack Iran, and how much ‘room' to give to the diplomatic effort," the group claimed.
The Quincy Institute has faced multiple controversies since its founding in 2019. While the organization is vying to become a major player with the incoming Biden administration, its embrace of anti-Semitic voices has undermined its efforts to push an isolationist foreign-policy approach. The Biden administration has so far resisted entreaties from the left to hire a host of Quincy officials for top foreign-policy postings.
Freeman is not the only Quincy Institute scholar accused of anti-Semitic bias.
Paul Pillar, a nonresident Quincy fellow, argued in 2014 that Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson's principal loyalty is to Israel.
"The Republican party isn't even his first love among political parties. That would be the Likud party," Pillar wrote. "Nor is the United States Adelson's first love among countries."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Quincy's former managing director for research and policy, was in hot water last year after she appeared to celebrate Israel's coronavirus-lockdown measures, saying the Jewish state's citizens are experiencing what it is like to live in the Palestinian territories.
"Such a tiny taste. Missing a tablespoon of blood," Whitson wrote in a tweet she later deleted and apologized for.
Online observers said Quincy has further eroded its credibility by publishing Ritter's works.
The Quincy Institute did not respond to Washington Free Beacon requests for comment on why it decided to publish Ritter's work and then delete it without explanation.
"I think it is fitting that, in the last fews [sic] hours of 2020, I've found out that [the Quincy Institute], whose tagline is ‘for responsible statecraft,' are publishing a convicted child molester," journalist Nick Waters tweeted along with a screenshot of Ritter's article.
From Wiki:
Arrests and conviction
Ritter was caught twice in 2001 in April and June 2001, and arrested shortly after the second incident,[42][43] in connection with police stings in which officers posed as under-aged girls to arrange meetings of a sexual nature. He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of “attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child” after the second, but charges were dropped after he completed six months of probation,[44] and the record was sealed on condition that he avoid further trouble for a period of time.[43] After this information was made public in early 2003, Ritter said that the timing of the leak was politically motivated.[42][43][45]
Ritter was arrested again in November 2009[46] over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site. Police said that he exposed himself, via a web camera, after the officer said she was a 15-year-old girl.[1] Ritter said in his own testimony during the trial that he believed the other party was an adult acting out her fantasy.[47] The next month, Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on a $25,000 unsecured bail. Charges included “unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation”.[48] Ritter rejected a plea bargain and was found guilty of all but the criminal attempt count in a Monroe County, Pennsylvania courtroom on April 14, 2011.[1][49] In October 2011, he received a sentence of 11⁄2 to 51⁄2 in prison.[50] He was sent to Laurel Highlands state prison in Somerset County, Pennsylvania in March 2012 and paroled in September 2014.[51]
Recent activities
From 2014 until 2017, Ritter was a frequent columnist for HuffPost.[52] Currently, he writes for RT.com.[53]
“Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has embraced kooky conspiracy theories, claiming in 2016 that there was no evidence Russia attempted to sway the presidential election that ushered Donald Trump into office. “
Catch that?
Good catch.
Could come from any deep state media publication.
Thanks for that detailed info, Red.
I posted because many won’t remember who he was or what he did.................
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