"It was a setup by the State Department. They issued Scott a passport two years ago that was not correctly marked. That was the failure of the Biden administration. And once they, well, let me put this way, whether it was intentionally at the start or not, I do not know, but they then realized that it did not have the proper markings."
"And instead of sending him a letter in advance, 'hey, we made a mistake, let's correct this,' they waited until he got on the plane to pull his passport. So it was a complete setup," Johnson said on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) when asked to comment on Ritter's being forced from the plane and his passport being confiscated.
Johnson added that he had personally had no problems flying to Russia and did not anticipate any problems upon his return to the US either, because he had "not done anything wrong."