It’s been more than two years since he resigned his position as director of the Central Intelligence Agency over an affair, but David Petraeus is still being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the nation’s top law enforcement agency won’t say why.
“The Petraeus investigation is still ongoing,” said Christopher Allen, an FBI spokesman.
Allen declined to say why Petraeus was still being investigated or when the investigation might conclude. A local law professor and former Army Judge Advocate General officer says the investigation could inadvertently keep Petraeus from testifying in a civil case filed by a Tampa couple caught up in the scandal.
Bloomberg View, which broke the story, said that the investigation involves classified information investigators found on the computer of Paula Broadwell, who co-authored a biography about Petraeus. Investigators discovered a relationship between the two in the course of investigating allegations made by Tampa resident Jill Kelley that she was being harassed via email.
Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, said that “Broadwell was never authorized to receive material that was found on her personal computer. Because this included compartmentalized intelligence that only a handful of very senior officials were approved to view, the FBI considers the breach to be a serious matter. ‘It was inappropriately shared and it should never have been shared,” one former senior intelligence official said.’”
Petraeus was also the subject of an inquiry by the CIA’s Office of Inspector General, according to the late Congressman C.W. “Bill” Young, who told The Tribune about it in November 2012, shortly after Petraeus resigned. Young told the Tribune that Mike Morell, then acting director of the CIA, assigned a CIA inspector general to investigate the issues leading to the resignation of Petraeus, the heralded retired Army four-star general who once led U.S. Central Command in Tampa before heading off to take command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The ongoing nature of the investigation has raised hackles in Congress. In March, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), now the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking why Petraeus was still being investigated. He also asked when the Justice Department found out and when Petraeus found out. The Justice Department declined comment at the time. The letter was a terse follow up to questions he asked Holder a year before that still went unanswered.
CIA officials declined comment about the status of that investigation. Petraeus declined comment and Broadwell did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The Petraeus scandal eventually created a furor here in Tampa, after Kelley’s name was leaked to the media.
Kelley and her husband, Scott later filed suit against the FBI, the Department of Defense and others, saying they invaded her privacy.
The suit says investigators and the military violated the Privacy Act, the Stored Communications Act and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by collecting emails Jill Kelley exchanged with military leaders and by releasing her name to the public.
The Kelleys claim the emails were collected during the investigation without their permission as the government investigated the affair between Petraeus, the former Centcom boss, and Broadwell, a major in the U.S. Army Reserves. The suit also claims that Petraeus and then-Marine Gen. John Allen were receiving “anonymous and threatening” emails from the same email address as the ones sent to Scott Kelley’s account that wound up sparking the investigation into Petraeus.
In September, a Federal District Court Judge in Washington D.C. tossed most of the lawsuit, but allowed the Kelleys to pursue the Privacy Act claim.
Petraeus was one of the many military leaders and foreign dignitaries the Kelleys hosted in lavish parties at their waterfront home.
“The government was not legally entitled to treat the Kelleys like criminals, pry into and disclose their personal communications, violate their privacy and disseminate confidential records as well as false information about them,” the amended suit states.
The ongoing investigation into Petraeus could be enough to keep him from testifying should the Kelley case go to trial, said Charlie Rose, an expert in both civil and military law. Rose has no connection to the case.
“If I were his lawyer, I would tell him not to testify and assert his 5th Amendment right,” said Rose, director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Professor of Excellence in Trial Advocacy at the Stetson University College of Law and a former Army Judge Advocate General officer and military lawyer who retired in 2004 as a major. “Nothing he can say will help him, and there is a lot that could hurt him. Why have him testify in a civil matter when there is a pending criminal situation, especially when the two issues are partially interrelated.”
Rose said he saw no correlation between the investigation and the lawsuit.
“If Petraeus is a suspect in criminal investigation, it is because they think he did something wrong,” said Rose. “It’s not for political reasons.”
The scandal also ensnared Allen, who at the time was leading U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan. Allen and Kelley had exchanged thousands of emails, which led to Allen being investigated by the Department of Defense. He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, but opted to retire instead of seeking a new position as head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is now helping to lead the international fight against Islamic State.
Kelley and her attorney, Alan Raul, declined comment. But in a recent editorial in Politico, Kelley, who has staked out a position as a privacy advocate, said that the scandal turned several lives upside down.
“A scandal was woven from leaks and lies, dubiously packaged as breaking news, and designed to distract from a ‘manipulated FBI investigation’….that turned the innocent victims’ lives upside down, and deprived the nation of two of its most decorated generals and valuable public servants,” she wrote. “This very tangible experience with the perils of overreaching and disrespectful government demonstrates why Congress needs to rein in abusive electronic surveillance and get serious about ‘holding the Administration accountable.’”
PHOTO: Bloomberg View, which broke the story, said that the investigation involves classified information investigators found on the computer of Paula Broadwell, who co-authored a biography about David Petraeus. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO