In a bizarre turn of events, CIA Director David Petraeus has tendered his resignation today after the FBI discovered he was having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, who is under investigation for improperly accessing classified information.
In his resignation letter, Petraeus couched the decision as a function of his moral failing, saying “such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.” Petraeus has been married for 37 years. Broadwell is also reportedly married with two children.
The real question, however, is not so much about the “extensive access” to his person that Broadwell was given while penning the biography All In, but rather access she may have been given to his personal email account, which was being monitored by the FBI as part of the investigation. So far no charges have been filed and the FBI insists that Petraeus himself wasn’t under investigation.
Still, that one of the nation’s top spymasters may have ended up leaking classified information to his girlfriend by way of his email account is a major embarrassment even without charges, and leaves Mike Morell as acting CIA director.
The sudden resignation of Petraeus means he will no longer be testifying to Congress in relation to the September Benghazi fiasco, and rather that Morell, as his (at least temporary) successor will be doing so. Military officials insist Petraeus’ resignation has nothing to do with Benghazi.
The timing of the resignation is also telling, as indications are this FBI investigation has been ongoing for quite some time, but the resignation waited until immediately after the presidential election. President Obama has been a vocal supporter of Petraeus in numerous roles, and the revelation that he appointed a leader of the nation’s most visible spy agency who couldn’t even keep an affair under wraps would certainly have been politically damaging if it came out before the vote.
Obama went on to praise Petraeus after the resignation for his “intellectual rigor” and “patriotism,” insisting he made the nation safer. Exactly how safe will likely only be apparent to people who have access to the classified data, like Broadwell.
Yup, it's no coincidence that all this broke and the resignation took place shortly AFTER the election.
And on the same day we read that Lockheed Martin top dog is out over fooling around with a subordinate.
Watch out power hungry, muderers.
Them purdy chickeys will get ya every time!
It is satisfying to see the surveillance state turn on itself. It is satisfying that there will be no Petraeus 2016 campaign. And finally, it is satisfying to exclaim "Betrayus, Betrayus."
Ironically, Total Information Awareness was a military sponsored project, wonder how much Petraeus himself contributed to it.
"The real question, however, is not so much about the “extensive access” to his person that Broadwell was given while penning the biography All In…"
Hilarious.
The Young Turks featured her blog in a segment last year, calling her out for her pro war propaganda.
the affair is thin air, and means nothing. it has to do with the fact that NON-muslims were involved in the benghazi hit, in various capacities.
it also, may have to do with the fact that he was not only a zionist kiss-ass, but that his fealty to zionists was sadly laid bare, in PREVIOUS emails.
the game is to obey the zionists, but NOT to let the sycophantic treasonous posture be publicized in an egregious manner- http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/petraeus-fed-his-pr…
he is like a chas freeman, from the other side of the coin. the game is clear, but you cannot err on either side of the acceptable margins.
[Steven Rosen, a former director of foreign-policy issues for AIPAC, explained to Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker that "a lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun."]
if you let the sun shine, and it is shining bright here, you f'ed up…. bad zionist shill, bad!
or i could hope he was canned due to (1) his zionist slant and (2) his complicity and/or lack of uncovering the iran-contra spook(s) involved in the hit in benghazi. if this is the case, i am starting to gain a slight hope for our collective situation….. but i doubt that take to be true.
Steven Rosen´s description of AIPAC being "a lobby like a night flower – it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun" is identical to that of a vampire, which better describes AIPAC.
It's always satisfying when one of the "Golden Boys" of the Right come crashing down.
I wonder…if Petraeus had been a darling and rising star of the Left…and this had happened…the first thing that would have crossed my mind is whether "she" had been recruited and run by a Karl Rove-type operative of the Right as I believe that they would do ANYTHING to achieve their goals. Not to say that the Left wouldn't do the same tho.
I think it's a fair bet that any aspirations Petraeus might have had about elected office…those chances are gone…oh wait, today's Right wing is the party of serial philanderers and "he's a good man at heart and we forgive him his failings" justifying blather…Isn't that right Newt?
And I find it hard to believe that the timing of the resignation is just coincidental to the Congressional Witch Hunt hearings. Maybe they can call Ms. Broadwell to testify…she might know just as much as Petraeus.
What his resignation has to do with his not testifying is beyond me. "What did you know, and when did you know it" and "how was she in bed" are different lines of questioning.
leader of the secret society cannot keep a secret, what a joke he is
"….'she' had been recruited and run by a Karl Rove-type …."
Or recruited by an Axelrod type so the BarryAdmin would have something on him when the time came. (which it obviously did). Not much difference in the big picture. The war machine is covered.
As a side note, how about Patraeus's sleazy comment, "“such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.” OURS? What an absolute pig, laying all the blame on Paula. Oh, well, look who employed him: Master-Swines BushW and Obama.
how come Bradley Manning sits in the brig for allegedly releasing data of what the US Govt was up to but Petraeus gets to resign.
The one thing you can count on is that the official story has nothing to do with reality.
Like, does anyone really believe that he's the first CIA head, or other high ranking general, admiral or official, to ever have a mistress? Or to let that mistress know something she shouldn't know? Yeah, right.
Someone wanted him out. Perhaps for foulups in Benghazi, perhaps for other reasons. I'm guessing that the general refused to resign nicely. Thus the big leaks (that will never be investigated) from the FBI investigation, and now this more forced resignation.
But the one thing you can count on is that the public articles are not telling you the real reasons.
Rat face bites the dust.
Very good article Jason! Noone else seems to have written that she was now also under investigation for "improperly" accessing classified information (a very inoquious statement that probably means more than it implies). I mean, if a biographer gets involved with his subject, they automatically become part of that biography. I mean she obviously can't complete the book now unless she turns it into a tell-all book. I'm almost beginning to wonder if the biography itself was not a ploy to get to that information …
The book has been out already. Look her up on Amazon. She was even on Jon Stewart's show promoting it. The two of them lavished praises on Petreus as though he singlehandedly won the Iraq War, and spent quite a bit of airtime being cute about the idea of a future president Petreus.
It really isn't all that surprising that an alpha male (even a quiet one) would occasionally succumb to his natural instinct to expand his personal gene pool, or that women would be drawn to someone like that. What I find more surprising is that someone like Stewart would help an obvious groupie (now confirmed to be an actual concubine) to promote her hagiography on his show. It will be interesting to hear what he will say about all of this on Monday.
Yeah, ok thanks Marangu6; I didn't know that the book was out already. Obviously kind of worthless now as a historical monogram. Maybe Amazon can now sell it as a double-pack together with the one from the Colombian prostitute, depicting our armed forces from a couple of perspectives. As far as Jon Stewart is concerned, he's aparently just a democratic party aparatchik providing air time to his side.
Other articles claim Obama was always suspicious of Betrayus, with good reason.
too bad, they would have made a nice couple, they both have receeding hairlines !
Great article, Jason!
I had not read anywhere else that the woman herself is under investigation for "improper" access to classified information; a term which, I think, always means more than it implies.
The odd thing about the case is the idea that biographer would get involved with her subject and therefore, by necessity, would then become part of that biography herself. I mean she obviously can't publish that book anymore, unless she turns it into a tell-all exposee (which would have to be approved for publishing by the CIA).
But if she really wasted her biographical work to date, then maybe the whole project was just a ploy to get to that classified information.
However, the only thing which undermines this semi-thesis, is the fact that, as all spy stories in the past have shown, there's much easier ways to access all classified information.
I dunno – how could anyone look at their photos together and not see "happy couple" or at least "testimonial woman" palpably there? It goes back to their time in Afghanistan. Why does anyone believe in the myth of Platonic relationships – unless you count the one Petraeus must have had with his wife, after her daddy was in his grave.
I don't begrudge anyone the right to happiness, but if you are serving in the military, there is a code you have to adhere to. Needless to say, the very ambitious are always like this, from Caesar on. I've seen it a few times up close and personal with three different men. One of them actually traded down looks-wise (because his wife was a really glamor girl – you can see her on Fox), but the associate he had the affair with had a source of power he needed.
In a certain sort of hell, the lovers would be reunited, sans their social status. But such endings when they happen in literature often result in untimely exits.
It is the inability of people putting Petraeus into his position of responsibility to see what would be evident to any high school student that allowed this thing to go on as long as it did without dealing with a security "threat". I wonder what was compromised and whether this was the intent all along: Paula Broadwell as a weak link who could be used to get information. It's interesting how quickly their relationship caught on (she was invited to talk to him because of her West Point education).
Simultaneously with her hijinks in Cambridge, several Russian sleeper spies were operating there under false identities and probably sham marriages, with their own children none the wiser. "Don Heathfield", using the identity of a dead Canadian, graduated from Harvard in 2000 and then attended the Kennedy School of Government with the express intent of rising high in the American establishment and finding a position of trust from which to send information back to Moscow.
I wonder if Paula's mom and dad are on the up and up, or if they landed like Coneheads in North Dakota and raised their daughter to be a Byzantine sort of femme fatale.
Maybe Petraeus was not fired. Maybe he bailed out. This makes it look like he did a good job but his failing is that he was too much a man. He really turned on Hillary and Obama with that statement about the CIA not being at fault in Benghazi. I think he is now in the best position he could be in. I would think a smart guy who knows the world’s secrets would maybe even plan an affair confession exit as one of his bad case scenarios. Even as they are getting our country bogged down in disastrous wars, guys like him probably always have their personal exit strategy all figured out
Who gives a rat's ass about this war criminal or his sexual indescretions? Nothing than any other inside-the-Beltway type has done. Good riddance. He can now enjoy his guaranteed federal retirement (how much do ex-4-star generals get, anyway?) live in a damn mansion, publish his "memoirs", the Company will be headed up by another criminal Stalinist apparatchik, and the beat goes on.
Can that be the beginning of purging the warmongers from the Obama cabinet? A far fetched dream but one can only hope.
But he's out and about.
Yet Bradley Manning is in prison,
Go figure.
Looks like the FBI caught themselves another patsy. This one in a high place and without a plastic bomb. Now, if only the FBI would look into those Wall Street e-mails…
I'm sure that's not all he leaked in her presence. Look at the rack on that babe.