The NY Times report on the latest in the Petraeus case raised my eyebrows quite a bit. This is the most strikingly political aspect of this scandal:
Meanwhile, the F.B.I. agent who had helped get a preliminary inquiry started, and learned of Mr. Petraeus’s affair and the initial concerns about security breaches, became frustrated. Apparently unaware that those concerns were largely resolved, the agent alerted the office of Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, the House majority leader, about the inquiry in late October. Mr. Cantor passed on the agent’s concerns to Mr. Mueller.
Other news reports (this one published in the Times as well) portrayed this part of the story slightly differently. They say that the FBI agent contacted Rep. Dave Reichert (not Cantor) and that Reichert in turn contacted Cantor. For those who may not know, Reichert is a law-and-order Christian conservative House member representing a suburban Seattle district. His entre to victory in his first House race was that he’d been King County Sheriff when the Green River killings were solved. Reichert is generally an ineffective, do-nothing GOP House member who’s made no mark during his service.
A number of questions arise about this part of the story: why would the FBI agent go outside the chain of command when he was dissatisfied with the progress in the case? Why did he tell Reichert and Cantor that his was a “national security concern?” Why did he contact Dave Reichert specifically? My guess is that the FBI agent may’ve known Reichert through law enforcement circles (perhaps he served in the FBI’s Seattle office?).
The claim that knowledge of the affair by Republicans played no role in the decision to let Petraeus go seems weak to me. Once the FBI agent got word to Reichert it became a huge partisan political football. For that reason, the agent should be fired. I want to know everything that Reichert and Cantor did, who they called, what they said, etc. They were sniffing for a political advantage. Did they overstep in their partisan zeal to dig up dirt on a senior Obama appointee?
Further, it appears this FBI agent began an investigation of the threatening e-mails sent to Jill Kelley because of a personal friendship between the victim and the agent. Again, suspicious. I’ve reported numerous e-mailed death threats sent to me and would love to know who sent them. The FBI has done nothing about them. Curious that they’d take this one so seriously except for that personal connection. I guess I need to make personal friends with some FBI agents.
Once they discovered that Paula Broadwell was author of the threatening e mails how and why did Petraeus become involved? Since when does having e mails from a former mistress in your Inbox constitute a federal crime?
I’m having a lot of trouble seeing what specifically Petraeus did that should’ve demanded his resignation. Throughout the investigation, the FBI attempted to uncover evidence that took this case outside the realm of an affair and that would make it a national security case. They couldn’t find any. Petraeus didn’t compromise national security, didn’t share classified documents. He simply had an affair. It appears he chose the wrong woman with which to do so as she caused the unraveling of his career. But why did the FBI take this outside the agency? What crime were they investigating? What evidence of a crime did they have?
We’re still a nation of laws. What laws were broken? Would the affair be embarrassing to the president and all involved? Sure. But to give a distinguished general the ax because he’d engaged in a sexual indiscretion seems an impossibly high bar. In some senses, we’re returning to those prurient days of the Clinton impeachment when Republicans wanted us to judge a President’s ability to govern based on whether or not he could keep his pants zipped. I thought we, and Congress, said No to that by refusing to convict Clinton. Apparently not when it comes to this president.
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Exactly. There appears to be no reason why Petraeus appears to have begged Obama to allow him to resign (recall earlier reports saying that initially, Obama refused his resignation). Next question: How a “family friend” is supposed to have been harassed by Petraeus’ ex-paramour, and why. And third, why the FBI jumped on it with an investigation without supposedly knowing the relationship between Petraeus and the sender of those e-mails. And fourth, why an FBI agent saw fit to become a whistleblower to a Republican senator, and why did he feel it was appropriate to do so subsequent to feeling “dissatisfied” with the investigation? What, pray tell, was the reason for his dissatisfaction?
I have heard that Petraeus is no longer going to testify about Benghazi. Is this true?
Well, there are many laws against adultery in this country. From a friend and law professor at Columbia:
“adultery remains a crime in 27 states including the states that Petreaus claims as his residence: New Hampshire and Virginia. And of perhaps greater importance, the Uniform Code of Military Justice treats adultery very seriously: Adultery is punishable under Article 134, with a maximum punishment of dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 1 year.”
Full article: http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/genderandsexualitylawblog/2012/11/10/all-in-marriage-rights-and-hypocricy-the-case-of-david-petraeus/
How amazingly puritanical. And hypocritical as well.
RE: “How amazingly puritanical. And hypocritical as well.” ~ mary
MY REPLY: Well, after all, this is America – the “(shining) city upon a hill”. And our much ballyhooed “American exceptionalism” inevitably necessitates unprecedented levels of hypocrisy!
• City upon a Hill – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_upon_a_Hill
I don’t think she was actually in your country at the time: she was here.
Where adultery is legal (much to the relief of David Mellor), but sending threatening communications definitely ain’t.
He wasn’t in the Army when the affair started.
Could it be that David Petreaus is the Robert McNamara of our time? For the younger generation: McNamara, serving as Pres. Johnson’s Secretary of Defense during the period of the great expansion of the war in Vietnam, secretly concluded the war was not only un-winable, but wrong. Although he argued against escalation within the highest councils, he never went public until a decade later. Was Petreaus the leader of Iran peace camp?
“I’m having a lot of trouble seeing what specifically Petraeus did that should’ve demanded his resignation.”
Welcome aboard 🙂 Oh squinting Seer. … Surely the whole story is only comprehensible to lifelong citizens of the Planet USA, that seems to have completely dislodged into a more or less paralell universe. Ever so more I’m now astounded to see in these quantum-wormhole-fluxed transmissions from Planet USA by an entity called “Richard Silverstein” continuing tell-tale signs of what we call “common sense” and mental clarity.
Yes, There’s life out there and this particularily seems just like us*! The rest of *US*, however, who does not seem surprised about the whole story – Summary: in a country that spews e.g. approx. 90% of the world’s ultra-extreme porn by now, a man who is likely responsible for the death of uncounted “collateral damage”-humans gets the whistle blown on by a federal investigator for an ‘affair’ and hurriedly resigns with deep regrets – may have scrambled crucial parts of their brains and hearts when they beamed themselves to divergent Universe USA, their New Secure Homeland.
I suspect the intelligence embarrassment in Libya may have had a role to play.
● RE: “. . . the [FBI] agent alerted the office of Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, the House majority leader, about the inquiry in late October. . .” ~ N.Y. Times
AND RE: “Other news reports portrayed this part of the story slightly differently. They say that the FBI agent contacted Rep. Dave Reichert (not Cantor) and that Reichert in turn contacted Cantor.” ~ R.S.
● MY COMMENT: As I understand it, the FBI agent first contacted Reichert. Then Reichert contacted Cantor (or someone in Cantor’s office). Next, Cantor (or someone in his office) contacted the FBI agent.
So as to the question of whether “the [FBI] agent alerted the office of Representative Eric Cantor”, I suppose it can be said that the FBI agent did, in a sense, “alert” Cantor’s office. But “the whole truth” is that Congressman Reichert was the first person to actually alert Cantor’s office, and Reichert was the first congressman that the FBI agent actually alerted.
This raises the question of whether Cantor and/or the Republicans have an interest in obscuring the intermediary role played by Reichert.
Was Reichert first alerted because he was a former sheriff, or was he first alerted because he was a “Christian conservative”? Was the FBI agent also a “Christian conservative”? If the FBI agent was a “Christian conservative”, might this help explain why he/she went outside the chain of command when he/she was dissatisfied with the progress in the case? Enquiring mimes want to know!
● ALSO SEE: A Covert Affair: Petraeus Caught in the Honeypot? ~ by Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com11/12/12
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/11/11/a-covert-affair-petraeus-caught-in-the-honeypot/
● P.S. “FREE DON” SIEGELMAN PETITION – http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-please-restore-justice-and-pardon-my-dad
P.P.S. RE: “As I understand it, the FBI agent first contacted Reichert. Then Reichert contacted Cantor (or someone in Cantor’s office). Next, Cantor (or someone in his office) contacted the FBI agent.” – me (above)
MY COMMENT: It appears that I might not have understood it correctly!
SEE: “A Petraeus Puzzle: Were Politics Involved?” ~ by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, 11/12/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/12-5
P.P.P.S. RE: “It appears that I might not have understood it correctly!” – me (above)
MY COMMENT: Then again, it now appears that I might perhaps have understood it correctly. Time will tell. Or will it?
FROM THE DAILY MAIL, 11/13/12:
SOURCE – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232130/FBI-agent-sent-topless-pictures-David-Petraeus-whistleblower-Jill-Kelley.html