Ridiculous Details Emerge From Petraeus Sex Scandal as Investigation Widens

Posted on Nov 13, 2012

AP/Chris O'Meara

Jill Kelley.

An FBI agent who read harassing emails sent from ex-CIA Director David Petraeus’ jealous paramour Paula Broadwell to her potential rival Jill Kelley became obsessed with the case, according to new details that are emerging from the scandal.

The agent, a friend of Kelley’s whom she turned to after receiving the emails, even sent her topless pictures of himself. Eventually, the matter was turned over to the FBI’s cybercrimes division and he was banned from the case over concerns that he had become personally involved.

But it doesn’t stop there. Worried the case would be ignored, he gave the information to Washington Rep. David Reichert, who then relayed it to FBI headquarters.

The Wall Street Journal:

By that point, FBI agents had determined the harassing emails had been sent by Paula Broadwell, who had written a biography of Mr. Petraeus’s military command.

Investigators had also determined that Ms. Broadwell had been having an affair with Mr. Petraeus, and that the emails suggested Ms. Broadwell was suspicious of Ms. Kelley’s attention to Mr. Petraeus, officials said.

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But according to The Daily Beast, the emails Broadwell sent to Kelley weren’t exactly threatening. A source told the site they contained more “cat-fight stuff” and no overt threats. They also barely mention Petraeus. “More like, ‘Who do you think you are? ... You parade around the base. ... You need to take it down a notch,’ ” the source said.

In fact, the FBI initially was not even sure it would take the case. So what tipped it? Most likely the fact that Kelley was friends with the FBI agent. From there, agents were able to piece together the Broadwell-Petraeus connection that ultimately led to his resignation.

And if this wasn’t all enough, the Petraeus scandal has expanded to involve another high ranking military officer: Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The Washington Post is reporting that the FBI uncovered 20,000 to 30,000 pages of “potentially inappropriate” emails between Allen and Kelley.

The plot thickens.

More from The Washington Post:

The Pentagon did not address the nature of Kelley’s alleged relationship with Allen. But another senior U.S. official, who is close to Allen, strongly denied that the general and Kelley had an affair or engaged in inappropriate communication. Allen and Kelley, who threw parties and other social events involving senior leaders at the Central Command, did exchange “a few hundred e-mails over a couple of years,” beginning when Allen was the deputy commander at the Central Command, this senior official said. But “most of them were about routine stuff.”

“He’s never been alone with her,” the senior official said. “Did he have an affair? No.”

The senior official also emphasized that the volume of communications between the two “was nowhere near” 20,000 to 30,000 personal messages. The official said the high page count reported by the FBI may have been the result of printing numerous individual messages that contained lengthy threads of earlier exchanges.

The only thing this scandal now appears to be missing is an adult-diaper-wearing astronaut driving halfway across the country.

—Posted by Tracy Bloom.

 

 

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