The investigation. And why, since Petraeus did not break any criminal laws nor breach national security, did he have to resign?

(Note: at the end of the NYT article I have appended part of an article by Michael Daly at The Daily Beast which goes further into the question of “minimization,” the FBI policy which tells the bureau not to look into [or share outside the bureau] purely private behavior, such as adultery, that involves no criminal or national security violations. This further raises the question: why were people outside the bureau—namely James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence—told about Petraeus’s affair?)

In Monday’s New York Times is a step-by-step account of the FBI’s investigation of the threatening e-mails to Jill Kelley that led to the discovery of the Petraeus-Broadwell affair. For those interested in this scandal it is must reading. It is an example of why, despite the fact that the Times is an evil institution, it is also invaluable, as it provides a level and depth of reporting that can be found in no other paper.

Here is the major question about l’affaire Petraeus that the article raises. As it explains, “Under military regulations, adultery can be a crime. At the C.I.A., it can be a security issue, since it can make an intelligence officer vulnerable to blackmail, but it is not a crime.” In fact, the FBI determined that the affair involved no breach of national security. Normally in such cases, adultery is regarded as a private matter and the FBI does not report it to any government entity outside the FBI, as the bureau is very sensitive about avoiding any repetition of the J. Edgar Hoover-era practice of using persons’ private sex lives against them. Why then, did the bureau finally report the affair to the President, the congressional intelligence committees, and the Director of National Intelligence, which led to Petraeus’s resignation?

John Prados, a historian and an author on intelligence and its abuses, said the case “posed several dilemmas for the F.B.I.” that would have prompted agents and their bosses to proceed gingerly.

“Petraeus is a very important person, so they would want to be crystal clear on exactly what happened and what the implications were,” Mr. Prados said. “There was probably a sense that it had to be taken to top bureau officials. And bureau officials probably thought they had better tell the White House and Congress and the D.N.I., or they might get in trouble later,” he added, referring to the director of national intelligence.

But if the security issues were resolved and no crime had been committed, Mr. Prados said, there was no justification for informing Congress or other agencies that Mr. Petraeus had had an affair.

“In my view, it should never have been briefed outside the bureau,” he said.

If Prados is correct, then the reason the FBI leaders passed on the information was to cover their behinds. But from a strict view of the rules and procedures in such a case, they should not have passed it on. And if they had not passed it on, we would not have heard of the affair and Petraeus would still be head of the CIA.

As for why his adultery required his resignation once it was reported to the President and the Congress, I don’t think anyone has answered that. It seems to be an example of the arbitrary and non-rational nature of liberal rule. Somehow Petraeus’s affair “felt” unseemly enough that he had to go. But there is no principle or rule which said he had to go.

Here is the article:

Officials Say F.B.I. Knew of Petraeus Affair in the Summer
By SCOTT SHANE and CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON—High-level officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department were notified in the late summer that F.B.I. agents had uncovered what appeared to be an extramarital affair involving the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David H. Petraeus, government officials said Sunday.

But law enforcement officials did not notify anyone outside the F.B.I. or the Justice Department until last week because the investigation was incomplete and initial concerns about possible security breaches, which would demand more immediate action, did not appear to be justified, the officials said.

The new accounts of the events that led to Mr. Petraeus’s sudden resignation on Friday shed light on the competing pressures facing F.B.I. agents who recognized the high stakes of any investigation involving the C.I.A. director but who were wary of exposing a private affair with no criminal or security implications. For the first time Sunday, the woman whose report of harassing e-mails led to the exposure of the affair was identified as Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa, Fla.

Some members of Congress have protested the delay in being notified of the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Petraeus until just after the presidential election. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that her committee would “absolutely” demand an explanation. An F.B.I. case involving the C.I.A. director “could have had an effect on national security,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think we should have been told.”

But the bureau’s history would make the privacy question especially significant; in his decades-long reign as the F.B.I.’s first director, J. Edgar Hoover sometimes directed agents to spy improperly on the sex lives of public figures and then used the resulting information to pressure or blackmail them.

Law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the investigation, defended the F.B.I.’s handling of the case. “There are a lot of sensitivities in a case like this,” said a senior law enforcement official. “There were hints of possible intelligence and security issues, but they were unproven. You constantly ask yourself, ‘What are the notification requirements? What are the privacy issues?’ “

A close friend of the Petraeus family said Sunday that the intimate relationship between Mr. Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, began after he retired from the military last year and about two months after he started as C.I.A. director. It ended about four months ago, said the friend, who did not want to be identified while discussing personal matters. In a letter to the C.I.A. work force on Friday, Mr. Petraeus acknowledged having the affair. Ms. Broadwell has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Under military regulations, adultery can be a crime. At the C.I.A., it can be a security issue, since it can make an intelligence officer vulnerable to blackmail, but it is not a crime.

On Sunday, the same Petraeus family friend confirmed the identity of Ms. Kelley, whose complaint to the F.B.I. about “harassing” e-mails, eventually traced to Ms. Broadwell, set the initial investigation in motion several months ago. Ms. Kelley and her husband became friends with Mr. Petraeus and his wife, Holly, when Mr. Petraeus was head of the military’s Central Command, which has its headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. Ms. Kelley, who volunteers to help injured service members and military families at MacDill, has been photographed with the Petraeuses at social events in Tampa.

“We and our family have been friends with General Petraeus and his family for over five years,” Ms. Kelley and her husband, Scott Kelley, said in a statement released Sunday. “We respect his and his family’s privacy, and want the same for us and our three children.”

The statement did not acknowledge that it was Ms. Kelley who received the e-mails, which was first reported by The Associated Press.

The involvement of the F.B.I., according to government officials, began when Ms. Kelley, alarmed by about half a dozen anonymous e-mails accusing her of inappropriate flirtatious behavior with Mr. Petraeus, complained to an F.B.I. agent who is also a personal friend. That agent, who has not been identified, helped get a preliminary inquiry started. Agents working with federal prosecutors in a local United States attorney’s office began trying to figure out whether the e-mails constituted criminal cyber-stalking.

Because the sender’s account had been registered anonymously, investigators had to use forensic techniques—including a check of what other e-mail accounts had been accessed from the same computer address—to identify who was writing the e-mails.

Eventually they identified Ms. Broadwell as a prime suspect and obtained access to her regular e-mail account. In its in-box, they discovered intimate and sexually explicit e-mails from another account that also was not immediately identifiable. Investigators eventually ascertained that it belonged to Mr. Petraeus and studied the possibility that someone had hacked into Mr. Petraeus’s account or was posing as him to send the explicit messages.

Eventually they determined that Mr. Petraeus had indeed sent the messages to Ms. Broadwell and concluded that the two had had an affair. Then they turned their scrutiny on him, examining whether he knew about or was involved in sending the harassing e-mails to Ms. Kelley.

It was at that point—sometime in the late summer—that lower-level Justice Department officials notified supervisors that the case had become more complicated, and the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section began working on the investigation as well.

It remains unclear whether the F.B.I. also gained access to Mr. Petraeus’s personal e-mail account, or if it relied only on e-mails discovered in Ms. Broadwell’s in-box. It also remains uncertain exactly when the information about Mr. Petraeus reached Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director. Both men have declined to comment.

But under the Attorney General Guidelines that govern domestic law enforcement officials, agents must notify F.B.I. headquarters and the Department of Justice whenever they are looking at a “sensitive investigative matter,” which includes cases “involving the activities of a domestic public official.”

F.B.I. agents interviewed Ms. Broadwell for the first time the week of Oct. 21, and she acknowledged the affair, a government official briefed on the matter said. She also voluntarily gave the agency her computer. In a search, the agents discovered several classified documents, which raised the additional question of whether Mr. Petraeus had given them to her. She said that he had not. Agents interviewed Mr. Petraeus the following week. He also admitted to the affair but said he had not given any classified documents to her. The agents then interviewed Ms. Broadwell again on Friday, Nov. 2, the official said.

Based on that record, law enforcement officials decided there was no evidence that Mr. Petraeus had committed any crime and tentatively ruled out charges coming out of the investigation, the official said. Because the facts had now been settled, the agency notified James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, about 5 p.m. on the following Tuesday—Election Day.

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.

Officials said Sunday that the timing of the notifications had nothing to do with the election, noting that there was no obvious political advantage for either President Obama or Mitt Romney in the news that the C.I.A. director had had an affair; Mr. Petraeus is highly regarded by both Republicans and Democrats. They also said that Mr. Cantor’s call to the F.B.I. on Oct. 31 had not accelerated or otherwise influenced the investigation, which they said had never stalled.

F.B.I. and Justice Department officials knew their handling of the case would ultimately receive immense scrutiny and took significant time to determine whom they were legally required to inform, according to a senior law enforcement official.

“This was very thought-through,” the official said.

The law requires that the Senate and House intelligence committees be kept “fully and currently informed” of intelligence activities, which conceivably might cover an investigation into a possible compromise of the C.I.A. director’s e-mail account and the possession of classified documents by Ms. Broadwell.

But Justice Department and F.B.I. rules, designed to protect the integrity of investigations and the privacy of people who come under scrutiny, say that investigators should not share potentially damaging information about unproved allegations or private matters unless it is critical for the investigation.

Glenn A. Fine, the inspector general for the Justice Department from 2000 to 2011, said it appeared that the F.B.I. was “legitimately following a lead” about possible criminal wrongdoing or a security breach.

“Some have said the F.B.I. was out to get the C.I.A.,” said Mr. Fine, who is now a partner at the law firm Dechert LLP in Washington. “That might have been true 20 years ago. But it is hard to believe that is going on today.”

John Prados, a historian and an author on intelligence and its abuses, said the case “posed several dilemmas for the F.B.I.” that would have prompted agents and their bosses to proceed gingerly.

“Petraeus is a very important person, so they would want to be crystal clear on exactly what happened and what the implications were,” Mr. Prados said. “There was probably a sense that it had to be taken to top bureau officials. And bureau officials probably thought they had better tell the White House and Congress and the D.N.I., or they might get in trouble later,” he added, referring to the director of national intelligence.

But if the security issues were resolved and no crime had been committed, Mr. Prados said, there was no justification for informing Congress or other agencies that Mr. Petraeus had had an affair.

“In my view, it should never have been briefed outside the bureau,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Michael S. Schmidt, Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti and Michael R. Gordon.

- end of initial entry

By Michael Daly at The Daily Beast, here is a much longer, but no more conclusive discussion of the question why the FBI shared their findings about Petraeus’s non-criminal, non-national security breaching behavior with authorities outside the FBI, namely James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence:

By that point, FBI headquarters almost certainly had been notified. One former agent with extensive experience estimates that it would have taken no more than 24 hours for word to get to Director Robert Mueller. A case that might never have been if the agents in Tampa had heeded their initial misgivings [about whether the e-mails to Jill Kelley were serious enough to investigate] now presented the head of the FBI with a predicament in which there were no happy options.

In all electronic surveillance, including emails, the FBI is legally compelled to adhere to the principle of “minimization,” limiting the invasion of privacy as much as possible to what is specifically warranted. This applies even when a case involves the worst kinds of criminals.

Agents are required to abstain from even listening to such purely personal conversations as mushy talk between a mob killer and his mistress….

As the Tampa case did not involve a crime or a threat to national security, one might have expected the spirit of minimization to lead the FBI to keep any personal revelations within the bureau and not say anything to anybody.

Perhaps Mueller was worried that if it leaked out somehow he might be accused of being like the FBI’s first director, J. Edgar Hoover, who relished collecting dirt. Hoover was not shy about using it to blackmail even the president. Mueller might even have been accused to being party to a plot to muzzle Petraeus regarding the mess in Benghazi.

Mueller chose to refer the matter to Petraeus’s titular superior, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. The justification was that Petraeus was the head of an organization where such personal entanglements are considered a threat to security by making an agent a target for blackmail. No Bond girls for our spies. Mark it as an added twist that Skyfall opened in the midst of all this.

The CIA double-no code aside, nobody could possibly believe that Petraeus would allow himself to be blackmailed into betraying the nation over an affair. But the principle of the boss adhering to the rules remained. And Clapper is said to have urged Petraeus to resign on his own terms rather than await the jackals.

Petraeus dutifully went to the White House to tender his resignation. Never mind that the Oval Office has witnessed much philandering over the decades with nobody having to resign….

The fact that the resignation came immediately after the election, even though the case is said to have begun back in late May or the beginning of June, has made more than a few people wonder about the timing.

Whatever the truth in this regard, it remains pitifully ironic that Petraeus could come to such grief over a little sex under a desk in a war zone where thousands of people were and are earnestly seeking to blow other people to bloody bits. Shoot but don’t schtup?

And just because Broadwell performed the literary equivalent of sex under a desk does not mean that any actual sex is anybody’s business.

By the long-honored principle of minimization, the members of Congress who are demanding to know why they were not told earlier about Petraeus’s affair with his biographer should be asking another question.

They should instead be demanding to know why anybody outside the FBI was told anything at all.

[end of Daly excerpt.]

Comments, Nov. 13, 12:15 p.m.

James P. writes:

The NYT stated,

“At the C.I.A., it can be a security issue, since it can make an intelligence officer vulnerable to blackmail, but it is not a crime.”

A security investigator once told me that if the person being investigated admits to adultery, then they must produce, the next morning, a signed letter from the spouse stating that the spouse is fully aware of the infidelity. If they refuse, then their clearance is pulled. I suspect that Petraeus either did not admit to adultery, or was exempted from informing his wife. If he had not informed CIA internal authorities and his wife of the affair, then there was a security issue, since he was vulnerable to blackmail, and it was proper for him to resign.

Henry S. writes:

You wrote:

“As for why his adultery required his resignation once it was reported to the President and the Congress, I don’t think anyone has answered that. It seems to be an example of the arbitrary and non-rational nature of liberal rule.”

Oh, I don’t think so.

This is all too delicious for words. While the fiscal cliff looms, we chatter about pants problems. Yes, it makes Obama look ridiculous, but what does he care? He’s gotten his second term. His acolytes are delirious robots, no one cares about Benghazi—he literally rules by fiat, with his Executive Orders that no one bothers to overturn. I think this was deliberately revealed to distract attention. [LA replies: Ridiculous. Obama and leftist America are at the top of the world, savoring their victory. What need do they have to create distractions?]

Alternatively, it was exposed by a troublemaker. Could that be Hillary? She’s not in the chain of command of any of these incomprehensible military entities, but I bet that lady has her spies everywhere. Why would she do this? She loves things to be at full boil. And she’s annoyed at men because she is married to such a horndog creep. [LA replies: I have zero interest in the speculative conspiracy theories that people produce in abundance every time something happens.]

Henry S. writes:

You wrote:

“It seems to be an example of the arbitrary and non-rational nature of liberal rule.”

Technically you are right. If there is no law broken, then that is that. Destroying the head of the CIA over a private affair is actually downright irrational. If he’s bad at his job, sack him over that. (But we don’t do things like that in modern America, do we?)

However, on a deeper level, I sense that the destruction of Petraeus is a carefully calculated act of destruction. It was malevolent, conscious, and planned. [LA replies: Did you read the NYT article posted in this entry about the FBI investigation and how it began and how it led eventually to Petraeus? There is a definite chain of events there. Are you saying that that chain of events didn’t happen, was made up by the Times? Or that the chain of events was orchestrated by someone, set up to present an apparent real investigation which was really planned all along to lead to Petraeus? This is the absurd and ridiculous place where people go when they automatically come up with conspiracy theories to explain various events.]

WHY? Well, venturing a guess…. None of this makes the Obama Administration look capable, does it? Obama looks very foolish. “He should have known” and “The buck stops here.” I think that’s actually rather unfair—a President can’t know everything, especially in this age of monstrous outsized government—but it’s a fact. Petraeus’ bad boy behavior makes his boss look bad. [LA replies: Ridiculous.]

And of course, this only calls attention to Benghazi. Now he can’t muffle the constant chatter. What did he know and when did he know it? [LA replies: Ridiculous. Petraeus still exists on the planet Earth. He still possesses whatever knowledge he had about Benghazi. His resignation doesn’t stop him from testifying.]

I think this information was transmitted by someone inside the administration, who has a deep animus towards Obama, and who wants to cut him off at the legs.

Perhaps you think this is a trivial point, but I think that it’s a big deal, because it reveals the nature of modern liberalism (see above). And it is further proof of how rotten to the core the Obama Administration is. And our military. [LA replies: The fact that they are rotten to the core doesn’t mean that they have committed every sinister act absurdly imputed to them by every conspiracy theory.]

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 13, 2012 02:00 AM | Send