[Spirited]

This past history now revealed makes it child's play to guess how much of any of this would have come out but for his stance:
"Ritter, who has made national headlines for speaking out against going to war with Iraq......."

The pols/media take care of their own, until they evidence an opposing opinion. Those who evidence cooperation (goose step) are "more equal" under the law than those who do not.

Easy to figure the similarities between using illegaly obtained/retained FBI files and using any other covered/previously concealed information on/about/for or against staff, appointed or elected representatives in any administration.

Is there, somewhere, a place where truth and uprightness is sufficiently valued that the closet doors can be opened without fear because no one can expect to be or to have been shrouded or masked and there really is "equal justice under the law"?

Where are the men of integrity and how do we know that that integrity is not manufactured (truth masked or shrouded) by the pol/media handlers who will break sinister revelations if the elected decide (for example) to represent those who elected them and fail to goose-step with whatever the current in charge group decides is best "for the people"?

It is less and less remarkable or unaccountable that the Constitution is the most despised document in the nation. It constitutes a virtual, virtuous conscience which must be disparaged, disregarded and displaced in order to kill, steal and destroy Providentially endowed liberties and their consequent extravagant yield.

[Bonaparte]

You pose some very knotty and age-old questions. IMO, Ritter's house of cards will come toppling down only when he fears someone else more than he fears Saddam, only when he is willing to face the consequences of exposure by Saddam rather than face a much worse alternative. This, unfortunately, is how most men like him are brought to heel -- fear, greed and vanity.