In a Friday afternoon bombshell, CIA Director David Petraeus resigned, citing an extramarital affair. Petraeus has been under fire recently for the CIA’s response to the Benghazi attack. The Cable’s Josh Rogin posted the letter of resignation:
Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation.
As I depart Langley, I want you to know that it has been the greatest of privileges to have served with you, the officers of our Nation’s Silent Service, a work force that is truly exceptional in every regard. Indeed, you did extraordinary work on a host of critical missions during my time as director, and I am deeply grateful to you for that.
Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life’s greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end.
Thank you for your extraordinary service to our country, and best wishes for continued success in the important endeavors that lie ahead for our country and our Agency.
With admiration and appreciation,
David H. Petraeus
This is completely out of nowhere. Just last week, the New York Times published a fawning profile of Petraeus (which the administration cooperated with), clearly an attempt to boost his image as the Benghazi criticism heated up. Here is the final paragraph:
Mr. Petraeus’s future has inevitably been the subject of rumors: that he would be Mitt Romney’s running mate, or, more plausibly, that he was interested in the presidency of Princeton. In a statement in late September, he did not rule that out for the future, but said that for the time being he was “living the dream here at C.I.A.” That was before the recriminations this week over Benghazi.
The recriminations over Benghazi notably include charges that Petraeus misled lawmakers during a closed congressional hearing in September. Petraeus was scheduled to testify at another closed hearing before the House Intelligence Committee next week. He sure isn’t scheduled anymore. Did the timing of his resignation have anything to do with that?
One last question. Typically when an official resigns because of an affair, it’s because the information has already been made public or is about to be made public. So who had the dirt on Petraeus?
Congress should issue a subpoena for General Petraeus. Really, since when does a resignation over an affair take precedence over secret Congressional testimony? n n
Right how does he get away airy that?
I have a completely different take on this — someone made an attempt to blackmail Petraeus into modifying his testimony to Congress with the threat that this would be released if he didn't, and instead he ended the blackmail by releasing it himself and resigning. n nI'm wondering if he was intentionally seduced. Would any of us put it past these people?
You may be right. "Duty. Honor.Country." He literally effed up and he knew it would come out eventually. When it was declared that he wouldn't be testifying before Congress…. isn't that at the discretion of the Congress?
.Back to Alana's original question as to "who had the dirt on Petraeus", the woman who slept with him — I strongly suspect seduced him — would have it. n nSay hypothetically that the FBI was to learn of this. Possibly when it happened, possibly later. n nThere has always been tension between the FBI and CIA over international operations, post 9-11 this has included domestic anti-terrorism operations, and do not forget that the mortar attack was on what most likely was a CIA compound. Assume that the FBI is with Obama and that CIA might actually tell Congress the truth about what happened in Libya. n nBack in the days of J. Edgar Hoover, someone from the FBI would quietly tell Petraeus how unfortunate it would be should he testify to Congress in a manner the Bureau didn't want him to because this file might get mistakenly mailed to some reporter, you know how incompetent the clerical staff is and all, you know, you know…. (No, J. Edgar would have done it personally.) n nI'm wondering if someone had a conversation like that with Petraeus. n nDuty, honor, country — he has but one choice, to put the good of the country ahead of the good of his career. He has to discuss it with his wife first, but by the end of the week, he has to resign his post. And he did. n nIt is exactly what I would have done — an honorable man simply can not live with people holding stuff like this over their heads. I doubt this was the anticipated response, but then I also doubt that there are very many honorable men (or women) in the Obama administration.
Why would the FBI know? While married with two kids, Paula Broadwell isn't the average "soccer mom." n nShe is a West Point grad with a background in military intelligence (which required a security clearance), who specialized in counterinsurgency, counterterrorism and geopolitical analysis. Who is an expert in Arabic and studied it extensively in a country named Jordan, which is right next to another one named Israel, in a part of the world where the stuff she is involved in interests a lot of people. n nIts described as her doctoral dissertation but I suspect her Masters' Thesis – Harvard Kennedy School of Govt — is about Petraeus and even though unpublished, she managed to get a book deal out of it. (That ain't easy — trust me, I am trying for my own book deal right now.) n nAnd she is now a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of War Studies at King's College in London. England, as in a foreign country. That alone is likely enough to get questions raised about her security clearance, even if she didn't raise any with her job as a research associate at Harvard — and who knows either who is on her doctoral committee over in London, or even what her dissertation topic is? n nWould she try to get stuff from Petraeus if her committee told her to? Absolutely — anyone who has ever earned a doctorate understands exactly. And if she was ever to forward an email from Petraeus to her committee — or even part of one — it is amazing the number of digital fingerprints that everything has right now. Right on down to the license number of the particular copy of Microsoft Word being embedded in the document itself. n nIf the FBI catches a license number or other digital fingerprint they know originated on a classified CIA document drifting around the internet, it will be like a fire siren in the night.
Two other things. First, while we don't know Broadwell's rank or actual reserve status (Oh, Alana…), the FBI didn't bounce this over to the Army's CID which makes one wonder what the threats *were* in said "threatening email" to another woman. nCould they have involved her relationship with the D/CIA and hence her ability to get the CIA to do something nasty to the woman? n nTHAT would get the FBI's attention, particularly if Broadwell forwarded an innocent email she had received from Petraeus as proof of her relationship with him. n nSecond, if she currently is in the Reserve, that means that she was a Reservist when she was sleeping with Petraeus over in Afghanistan. Adultery is bad enough, but the Army also really frowns on sleeping with junior officers in your command and arguably she essentially was when she was over there writing her book. n nNow Petraeus is 60 and "retired" — but Broadwell is not and could face a courts martial for the adultery alone although I am wondering about what else may be here involving classified documents and such. And the FBI's statement that she likely won't face *criminal* charges may have a different meaning if she were to face MILITARY charges instead.
Ed, I think you're onto something, but I've got a few observations/hypotheses to add. nTo begin, it's curious that our elite top spook & American hero, was being "monitored" by the FBI, is it not? nLikewise, as far as I know, since J Edgar was dispatched to hell, I've been unaware that any chief of the FBI has been found to be initiating major investigations on his own, & I'd say Mr Mueller seems hardly the type to initiate a clandestine surveillance op on our No 1 spook. nIf that's true, then Mr Mueller was instructed to launch total invasion of David Petraeus' privacy. nNow who would stand most to gain from getting Petraeus out of the CIA & out of government altogether? I submit that would be none other than Barack Hussein Obummer. And it's my conviction that he's the original source of the investigation, whether or not he gave the order directly to Mr Mueller, or told one of his henchman to get it done. nNow, why would Obummer want Petraeus out? Benghazi, of course. nThere are multiple conspiracy theories out there, including everything from Ambassador Stevens having been there at that time to arrange a backdoor deal to arm jihadists in Syria, to a plan to have Stevens kidnapped by Arabs & then used as a "lever" to get the Blind Sheikh (who organized the 1993 WTC attack) liberated in return for Stevens' release… & Stevens, Arabist that he was, was probably in on it. nIn any case, there's no excuse for what happened in Benghazi, nor for the way the situation has been "handled"… or rather mishandled from the beginning until today. And our major media splashing David Petraeus' "affair" like intellectually challenged toddlers splashing in a urine-filled wading pool. Disgusting! nAnd why? To detract attention from the Benghazi scandal, that is still an enigma following weeks & weeks of excuses, lies & utter bullshit from Obummer, his henchmen, & the outrageously corrupt & malevolent media moguls who make lots of money from advertisers who pay them for lying to the American people, for whitewashing the abject corruption & treason at the highest echelons of our country, including the Obummer White House & all of Obummer's cock-sucking acolytes on illegal sinecures. nPoor America! nEd Clark
No. I think what the FBI did was legitimate if what I think happened actually did. n nLet's say Broadwell sends one or more of her personal emails from Petraeus to this third unknown women (who may even be his wife). The FBI is going to presume that the emails are not legitimate — they see this all the time. n nSo first the go through the headers info that every email has (and few people realize it has) and verify that it looks like it actually came from where it says it did. Then they go through the various logs and verify that the emails actually went out, that the copies that are kept match the emails they are investigating. n nThen they have to go through each of his personal emails to her and verify that it came from his machine, proper IP address, digital fingerprints and the rest, and that there wasn't anyone hacked into his account. (Presumption would be that Broadwell had gotten herself into his email and sent the love letters to herself.) n nThey may have a psychologist look at the personal emails to Broadwell and see if they match Petraeus' writing style — again, looking for evidence that they were forged. n nAt this point they could tear apart his personal machine for a forensic analysis but there would be no sense — they went to him (they admit doing so) and asked him "sir, did you send these emails to this woman?" When he says "yes', they now know that the security of the system is intact. And that is important. n nWhat they do with what they learn is something else, but this is basic computer security on a highly classified governmental computer network and you HAVE TO take this sort of thing seriously.
Who's the broad? n n
So ends the career of the most overrated military 'genius' of our time, whose 'hearts and minds' rules of engagement were likely responsible for hundreds if not thousands of excess American military deaths. n n
You must have been deployed over there, Maines. I was in Afghanistan for a yr, and all I heard from the command was about winning the “hearts & minds” of the Afghans. Biggest crock of BS. As an embedded team, we were under constant danger/threat from the Afghans. I agree with you on the overrated, so called military “genius”.
Iranian spy? Rent boy?
EMPRESS FROM PLANET OF THE FLAKES ????? n n
Empress_Trudy — you might be onto something there. I would want to know who is on her committee at King's College and what her dissertation topic is to be, but maybe….
hmmm. Obama must really, really want Susan Rice as SecState. nor Jane Harman at CIA. n nbest to wait for the National Enquirer to fill in the blanks. n
So Bill Clinton has an affair while president, lies to the entire country, and then gets to keep his job. Petraeus has an affair and he must resign a week before he is to testify about Benghazi???? Something seems awfully fishy here.
Jane Harman? Really? We're going the :"I hired a woman" route?
Our media is chock full of trists and mistresses, but we need to be monogomous in our relationships – except for being Gay or Lezzie seems OK in the relationship. Possibly we need to consider that being poly, having friends with bennies on the side, et all is OK for society. The SO can make the decision on what is best for them when it is found out, or possibly agree beforehand that some extra action on both sides is OK. n nOtherwise, before long we might not have any business executives, leaders in government, or politicians. Heck if Sen Martinez can have different women every night why can't I.
It's interesting that the Eisenhower-Summersby affair was well known during WW2, but Ike was elected to the Presidency twice.
Clinton did it in the Oval office! The General has been thrown under the speeding Obama Bus!
Valerie Jarrett ordered the investigation to get hand, She then used it to get the General to take the blame for Benghazi where in my opinion there were many more deaths and injuries to CIA personnel than is being reported. The White House is terrified of this and more coming to light. nBenghazi is the top of the iceberg. This was a gun running operation to arm Syrian rebels gone bad. Throw in a ambassador being kidnapped and the release of the blind Sheikh you are getting close. nThis is Valerie Jarretts plan gone bad. it need to be uncovered. n
latest story is she started harassing *another* lady friend of Petraeus (not his wife) and that woman complained to the …. FBI.
crikey. the emerging details, apparently coming from FBI sources, make me want to re-read all of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels until he writes this one! n n
Hmmm…. Why might a rational (or sorta-rational) person think that the FBI might want to even get involved in a conflict between a bunch of women sleeping with the same guy? n nWhat kind of "dirt" — above and beyond the fact that she, too, was sleeping with a married guy — would interest the FBI beyond the most cursory "thank you for telling us about this" and the rest? Now if you were to tell the FBI that someone with a security clearance was playing fast 'n' loose with classified documents and give something resembling evidence that the person is doing this, the FBI would become really REALLY interested quite quickly. n nI am a reasonably good judge of character, and Michelle Bachmann was quite serious about her concerns about national security leaks last July. So we go back to the question of if Paula Broadwell was just an ambitious woman trying to get juicy details for her dissertation, or if she was in bed with our enemies
taking the alternate course, that it at least started as a cat-fight over a guy a la the descent into weirdness that saw a NASA female astronaut driving cross country to stalk her rival, that could explain why the FBI dilly-dallied so long over it. n nthe FBi has said that Petraeus himself is not under investigation–but yeah, there is the angle that that she may have accessed/gone after classified e-mail–but from early accounts the FBI spent time pouring over his personal e-mails to her n nbeats me Ed_EdD!
It gets better — Petraeus sent his love letters from "a personal" email account. n nOK, and from what IP address? A CIA one? n nThe first thing *I* would do in looking at a suspicious email (after clicking the button to show the header information) would be to look at the sending IP address which usually is on the email. And when the basic FBI-guy does the nfslookup and either finds that it is registered to the CIA or that he can't find anything (and perhaps his boss gets a call inquiring why he is looking) then FBI-guy (and his boss) are going to get VERY interested in this…. n nJust because the email says it is from "David Petraeus" doesn't mean it is — santa@northpole.gov is neither a real address nor domain, but sometimes small children get email messages from this address…. And the FBI is going to initially assume that this is some sort of hoax, which is one thing, but the bigger question they are going to be asking is "how the h*** did the person get onto the CIA network to send it?" n nThink logically here — this is a man who, in Afghanistan (and Iraq before it), routinely used the Army's computer network to send personal email and such back to the states. The Army encourages this – there are guys in Afghanistan and aboard ships taking college courses, people can stay in touch with family, it helps morale and such — and this is what he is used to doing. So when he goes to CIA and gets his computer there, wanna bet that…. n nEven if he doesn't send the email directly from the computer on his desk, if he instead uses a smartphone or PDA, if it is linked/synced to the network, if it is using the CIA WiFi rather than the more expensive cell signal; if, for any reason, it sends the email out via the CIA network, then the IP addresses on the initial routing machines will be CIA ones. n nIf you are operating under the thesis that (Broadwell) is a psycho who is threatening someone else, you have to wonder if she is a stalker and the FBI does have a duty (and routinely does) protect government bigwigs from the nutcases who would do them harm. It is not uncommon for someone to fabricate a complete relationship with a public figure (remember the guy who shot Reagan because of his imaginary relationship with Jodie Foster?), and the FBI well may have gone into this thinking that. n nThey likely started from the presumption that the emails were forged, that he wasn't having an affair, and upon ruling everything else out, concluded that the emails in fact were genuine. n nThe thing that bothers me more, though, is that it has come out that a FBI whistleblower in late 0ctober went to a GOP rep and told him about this, the rep told Cantor — WHO THEN TOLD THE FBI. Talk about 'burning a source'!