The Soapy Details Of The Petraeus/Allen Probe

The Soapy Details Of The Petraeus/Allen Probe
November 15, 2012

General John Allen and Florida’s Jill Kelley are tied together in the headlines they wish they hadn’t made.

Associated Press digs in to the awkward details which tie a bombshell “social liason” in Tampa Bay, Florida, Jill Kelley, to a powerful General in Afghanistan, John Allen. His appointment as Supreme Command of the NATO Allied Forces is now being put on hold by the President, because of this mess.

From ASSOCIATED PRESS:

It started in May with a spiteful email to the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. An anonymous writer warned Gen. John Allen that a friend with whom he was meeting in Washington the following week was trouble and he should stay away from her.

General John Allen, current U.S. General in charge of Afghanistan.

Allen thought the email was a joke because he didn’t know how anybody else would know about his personal plans with his friend, Florida socialite Jill Kelley, a person close to Kelley said.

That email started a chain of events that led to the downfall of CIA Director David Petreaus, put Allen’s career on hold and landed a decorated FBI agent in hot water for talking about an ongoing investigation. The FBI traced that email and others of a similar vein to Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’ biographer, who agents would soon learn had also been his lover.

Paula Broadhead and Jill Kelley, join Petraeus and Allen in showing bad judgment.

The fast-moving scandal broke just days after President Barack Obama was elected to a second term in office. Obama’s administration had been on the defensive for weeks because of a terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. Briefings on the attack had been postponed until after the election and are now focused more immediately on Petraeus’ love life than on how terrorists were able to attack the poorly defended consulate.

Obama said Wednesday he’s seen no evidence that national security was damaged by the revelations that ended his CIA director’s career and imperil that of his Afghanistan war commander. But lawmakers aren’t taking Obama’s word for it and grilled FBI and CIA officials privately about the same issues: whether national security was jeopardized by the case and why they didn’t know about the investigation sooner.

White House claims it became aware of Petraeus scandal on Election Night? Seems unlikely.

The FBI’s investigation of the matter began last summer when Kelley turned over anonymous emails that had been sent to her and Allen. The first anonymous email was sent to Allen in May, under the pseudonym “Kelleypatrol,” the person close to Kelley said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

In midsummer, Kelley shared these emails with an FBI agent, Frederick W. Humphries, whom she met at an FBI community program in 2011.

The FBI should have informed Congress of its investigation. Why didn’t they?

Concerned that someone was tracking the movements of Allen and Petraeus, the FBI agent set the investigation in motion when he handed the information to the FBI’s cyber squad in Tampa. But Humphries was cut out of the loop and took that to mean the FBI was not taking the case seriously, the person close to Kelley said. Humphries would later reach out to Congress in a whistle-blower role that has now landed him under internal scrutiny at the bureau.

But the FBI was taking the case seriously and continues to investigate.

The FBI has found a substantial number of classified documents on Broadwell’s computer and in her home, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. Broadwell has told agents that she took classified documents out of security government buildings, the official said. Unauthorized possession of classified national defense documents is a crime. The Army has suspended Broadwell’s security clearance, which she had as a former Army intelligence officer.

Petraeus and Paula Broadhead can’t turn back the clock.

The FBI also found emails between Kelley and Allen that were turned over to the Defense Department for investigation. Obama has put on hold Allen’s nomination to become the next commander of U.S. European Command as well as the NATO supreme allied commander in Europe until Pentagon investigators are able to sift through the emails that involve Allen and Kelley.