Michael Ruppert is the founder and editor of From The Wilderness, a newsletter and website dedicated to investigating political cover-ups. On August 16, 2006 Ruppert announced that he was leaving the United States permanently, citing years of harassment for his ongoing dissident activities.[1]
After returning to Los Angeles, Ruppert started writing again from retirement. On March 24, 2008, Ruppert published an article called RETROSPECTIVE - 2008. He has written three more articles dated September 17, September 29, and November 5, 2008. All four of these new articles are posted at his From The Wilderness website. In the Sep. 29th article, Ruppert wrote, "I have broken an unspoken deal with the government to remain retired and not speak out."
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From The Wilderness was a newsletter published by the media company From The Wilderness Publications, which claimed to be ahead of the mainstream media by as much as one year. The newsletter covered a range of political and governmental issues. It was published eleven times per year but featured weekly updates online. It was started by Michael Ruppert in 1998. Critics such as David Corn[2] and Norman Solomon argued that Ruppert on occasion veered off into making unsubstantiated conspiracy theory claims. Ruppert himself said he documented his sources, and is a trained police detective (ex-LAPD narcotics officer).
Their website says that the newsletter was about "the publication of documented truth and the letting go of fear through education" and claimed to distribute to "16,000 subscribers in 40 countries including 35 members of the United States Congress and professors at 30 universities around the world" before being shut down.
Michael Craig Ruppert was born in Washington, D.C. His father was an Air Force officer and later an aerospace executive who worked on projects which included the Titan III. His father's cousin, Barbara Burges and her husband Sam, are both retired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Mr. Ruppert's mother was a cryptographer for Army Intelligence at Fort Myer, VA, during the Second World War.
Ruppert was raised a Republican. He has jokingly said that from 1969 to 1973, he was one of two "living" Republicans on the UCLA campus. During that time, Ruppert was chosen, as an honors student in political science, to intern for Chief Edward M. Davis of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD).
After graduation from UCLA, he was assigned to Wilshire Division patrol, and excelled at patrol work and was subsequently sent on detective assignments, including burglary and homicide. He was later recommended by the narcotics officer-in-charge to attend a two-week DEA training school held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Narcotics was Ruppert's chosen specialty, and has given expert court testimony on the subject 27 times.
In 1977, Ruppert discovered an extensive drug trafficking operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency and went on record about this ongoing criminal activity. He resigned from the LAPD in 1978 despite earning the highest rating reports possible, over the tolerance of continued CIA drug dealing activities.[3] Ruppert's personal experience with death threats, 3 shooting attempts on him, aggressive intimidation over his attempted exposure of these illegal drug activities within Los Angeles, and his ethical conflict with tolerance of these activities, was the catalyst for the resignation.[4]
Ruppert filed an official complaint with FBI Special Agent Stan Curry of the L.A. Field Office on December 4, 1978. This was after Ruppert was forced out of LAPD on November 30, 1978.
In 1996 Ruppert achieved some justice through his comments at a televised visit of then Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch to South Central Los Angeles. Deutch had made the trip to Los Angeles to dispel rumors in the black community that followed the publication of Gary Webb's series in the San Jose Mercury News which made claims of CIA connections to cocaine dealers in the United States, particularly Los Angeles. Webb was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist, best known for his 1996 Dark Alliance investigative report.[5] In Webb's three-part series (later published as a book titled Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion), Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had allegedly distributed crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. Webb alleged that this influx of Nicaraguan supplied cocaine sparked and significantly fueled the widespread crack epidemic that swept through urban areas.
On November 15, 1996, Ruppert stood at the town hall meeting at Locke High School in Los Angeles and said to Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, "I am a former Los Angeles Police narcotics detective. I worked South Central Los Angeles and I can tell you, Director Deutch, emphatically and without equivocation, that the Agency has dealt drugs in this country for a long time."[4] He then referred Deutch to three specific CIA agency operations known as Amadeus, Pegasus and Watchtower. At the meeting, Ruppert publicly confronted Deutch, saying that in his experience as an LAPD narcotics officer he has seen evidence of CIA complicity in drug dealing for a long time.[6]
Michael Ruppert quoted one entry from Oliver North's diary dated July 5, 1985, which said that $14 million to buy weapons for the Contras, "came from drugs." and he wouldn't need to mention the two hundred and fifty other such entries in his diary, which refer to narcotics.[7]
On October 1, 1997, Ruppert submitted documents to the Select Intelligence Committees of both Houses. To date, it remains only a document submitted in advance of testimony and has not been placed in the Congressional Record.[4]
Ruppert went on to become an aggressive investigator and Journalist,[8] as well as establishing the publication From The Wilderness, a watch dog group that exposes governmental corruption, including his experience with CIA drug dealing activities.[9] From The Wilderness, was read, before being shut down,[10] in more than 50 countries around the world. Its subscribers include 60-plus members of the US Congress, professors at more than 40 universities around the world, and major business and economic leaders. Since 9/11 Ruppert has been in demand as a university lecturer and has spoken on Peak Oil and 9/11 in nine countries. Recently, at the request of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, he served as an official questioner during a Congressional briefing looking into unanswered questions and the unaddressed flaws of the Keane 9/11 Commission report.
On September 16, 2009, BOLI (the Bureau of Labor and Industries for the State of Oregon) established by a preponderance of credible evidence that Respondent (From the Wilderness), through its proxy Michael Ruppert, subjected Complainant to offensive and unwelcome sexual conduct that created a hostile and intimidating work environment, in violation of ORS 659A.030(1)(b), then discharged Complainant in retaliation for her complaint about the sexual conduct, in violation of ORS 659A.030(1)(f). The forum concluded that Respondent was liable for Ruppert’s sexual harassment and awarded Complainant $2,713.42 in back wages and $125,000 for emotional and mental suffering damages. ORS 659A.030; OAR 839-005-0030.[11]
Ruppert is author of Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil,[12] published in September 2004. Crossing The Rubicon claims that Vice President Dick Cheney, the US government, and Wall Street had a well-developed awareness of and colluded with the perpetrators of 9/11.
Ruppert appears in the documentary films Peak Oil - Imposed by Nature [13] and The End of Suburbia.
In the summer of 2006, Ruppert abruptly left the United States for Venezuela.[14] He flew to Canada on November 18, 2006, for medical treatment in Toronto.[10] Finally these problems became too much to bear and he threw in the towel giving the following message to his fans:
"Over the past four months many of you have touched me with your generous and loving offers of support and encouragement. You have kept me alive. I have also understood, probably for the first time, how deeply FTW has impacted your lives and the lives of a new and younger generation. As my health and my access to your letters improves I will be writing personally to as many of you as I possibly can.
"I want to repeat something I have been saying in private emails over the last month. Personally, I am through forever with investigative journalism and public lecturing. I am leaving public life. It is my hope that by continuing to repeat this sincere position that many of the inexplicable difficulties which have dominated my life over the past months will ease.
"It is time to move on. I spent twenty-seven years as a dedicated public activist and that is something which I am no longer able or inclined to do. The price was ultimately too great."[15]
Amongst the reasons given to end From The Wilderness, Ruppert states:
"There were more problems of human origin. Some were definitely malicious ... I am the one who left knowing that I couldn’t continue any longer after our offices were burglarized and our computers were smashed this June. There had been one-too-many battles and, looking back, I knew my health was failing then even though I didn’t want to admit it."[1]
On December 4, 2006, as reported by the Ashland Daily Tidings, Ruppert and From the Wilderness were sued by their landlord, Aro Partners, for back rent owed on the Ashland office space. In the same article it was confirmed that Ruppert was an official suspect in the burglary of said office space.[16] On August 13, 2007 a post was made on the unofficial From The Wilderness blog stating that Ruppert had been cleared of any involvement in the break in by the Ashland Police Department because it would be absolutely moronic for anyone to vandalize their own office. Ruppert has since updated all events that have occurred over the past two years in a new article on FTW. In it he describes and discredits all accusations against him while out of the country fighting for his life.
The subsequent and second chief suspect of the burglary, a former From the Wilderness employee, fled Oregon to California, where troubles with the law followed with a local DUI arrest. The victim of the alleged sexual harassment, who was previously cleared for direct involvement with the burglary of the FTW office itself, has ceased further accusations after a blackmail scheme was exposed. Ruppert suggested these four individuals' motives may have been connected to his staff's revelations concerning the Pat Tillman case on their website and also a specific piece From the Wilderness did that was highly critical of the Ashland Daily Tidings reporting accuracy. He has no plans to continue civil cases of his own against them.
Recent posting from him on the FTW website said Ruppert was back in New York, receiving treatment from "sympathetic physicians" for a variety of ailments, many at the very least related to extreme stress as a result of death threats, the aforementioned burglary, false allegations, and resulting financial troubles. "It has been learned that his adrenal system is severely damaged and there may be toxicity of the liver. He has lost more than 20 pounds in the last ten weeks. Many of you have written suggesting possible poisoning as cause for his known symptoms. We are not pursuing that at the moment because the treatment for the symptoms would not change in either case."[10]
As of 2008, Ruppert is now living in Los Angeles, CA and has expressed no desire to get back into fulltime dissent journalism. This is after the officer in charge of his case recommended he simply get on with his life after apologizing for the mess in Oregon. Ruppert credits a new fiction novel he's writing, work with the film industry, horseback riding, close friends, and a new dog for his recovering health. [17]
Ruppert still occasionally contributes to a blog run by FTW associate and friend, Jenna Orkin.[18]
Ruppert currently plays and performs music with a Venice, Ca group, New White Trash
Columnist Norman Solomon has argued that Ruppert has a flawed analytical model. "Some of the problem is in how he characterizes news reports. These citations can be narrowly factual yet presented in a misleading way. Yes, such-and-such newspaper reported that thus-and-so claim was made by so-and-so. The paper reported on the claim, but that doesn't mean the claim is true."[19]
Ruppert's reply to Solomon's criticism, "Most of our critics, notably David Corn of The Nation and self-anointed media critic Norman Solomon, have gone silent as both our reporting and predictions have been completely validated by events."[20]
Columnist David Corn has also criticized Ruppert's methodology, and dismisses the idea that conspiracy theorizing is useful: "In fact, out-there conspiracy theorizing serves the interests of the powers-that-be by making their real transgressions seem tame in comparison."[21] Ruppert responded with an open public letter to Corn.[22]
Many supporters of Ruppert's take issue with the use of phrases like 'conspiracy theories,' as they instigate immediate connotations and denote falsehoods that portray the 'conspiracy theorist' as a member of a paranoid fringe-dwelling underclass. As Ruppert points out about several of his major documented sources, academics Dr Alfred W. McCoy and Peter Dale Scott; "why is it that these books have never been sued? There is an old saying amongst legal circles: the truth is the perfect defence against libel." [23]