Scandal widens; US general’s emails ‘flirtatious’

Jill Kel­ley leaves her home Tues­day in Tampa, Fla. Kel­ley is iden­ti­fied as the woman who allegedly received harass­ing emails from Gen. David Petraeus’ para­mour, Paula Broad­well. She serves as an unpaid social liai­son to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, where the military’s Cen­tral Com­mand and Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mand are located. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Chris O’Meara)

NANCY BENAC

PAULINE JELINEK

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — The sex scan­dal that felled CIA Direc­tor David Petraeus widened Tues­day to ensnare the top U.S. com­man­der in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, in a sud­denly pub­lic drama involv­ing a Tampa socialite, a jeal­ous rival, a twin sis­ter in a messy cus­tody dis­pute and flirty emails.

The improb­a­ble story — by turns tragic and silly — could have major con­se­quences, unfold­ing at a crit­i­cal time in the Afghan war effort and just as Pres­i­dent Barack Obama was hop­ing for a smooth tran­si­tion in his national secu­rity team.

Obama put a hold on the nom­i­na­tion of Afghan war chief Allen to become the next com­man­der of U.S. Euro­pean Com­mand as well as the NATO supreme allied com­man­der in Europe after inves­ti­ga­tors uncov­ered 20,000-plus pages of doc­u­ments and emails that involved Allen and Tampa socialite Jill Kel­ley. Some of the mate­r­ial was char­ac­ter­ized as “flirtatious.”

Allen, 58, has insisted he’d done noth­ing wrong and worked to save his imper­iled career.

Gen. Mar­tin Dempsey, chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has rec­om­mended to Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panetta that he keep Allen in his post as com­man­der in Afghanistan, Dempsey’s spokesman, Col. David Lapan, said Tuesday.

Dempsey called Allen from Aus­tralia, where he was to attend meet­ings with Panetta, Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton and their Aus­tralian coun­ter­parts. Allen told Dempsey that he had not com­mit­ted any wrong­do­ing, Lapan said

Kel­ley, 37, who had worked her­self into the cen­ter of the mil­i­tary social scene in Florida with­out hav­ing any offi­cial role, emerged as a cen­tral fig­ure in the still-unfolding story that has embroiled two of the nation’s most influ­en­tial and respected mil­i­tary leaders.

Known as a close friend of retired Gen. Petraeus, Kel­ley trig­gered the FBI inves­ti­ga­tion that led to his down­fall as CIA direc­tor when she com­plained about get­ting anony­mous, harass­ing emails. They turned out to have been writ­ten by Petraeus’ mis­tress, Paula Broad­well, who appar­ently was jeal­ous of the atten­tion the gen­eral paid to Kel­ley. Petraeus acknowl­edged the affair and resigned Friday.

In the course of look­ing into that sit­u­a­tion, fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tors came across what a Pen­ta­gon offi­cial called “inap­pro­pri­ate com­mu­ni­ca­tions” between Allen and Kel­ley, both of them married.

Accord­ing to one senior U.S. offi­cial, the emails between Allen and Kel­ley were not sex­u­ally explicit or seduc­tive but included pet names such as “sweet­heart” or “dear.” The offi­cial said that while much of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion — includ­ing some from Allen to Kel­ley — is rel­a­tively innocu­ous, some could be con­strued as unpro­fes­sional and would cause a rea­son­able per­son to take notice.

That offi­cial, as well as oth­ers who described the inves­ti­ga­tion, requested anonymity on grounds that they were not autho­rized to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion publicly.

The FBI decided to turn over the Allen infor­ma­tion to the mil­i­tary once the bureau rec­og­nized it con­tained no evi­dence of a fed­eral crime, accord­ing to a fed­eral law enforce­ment offi­cial, who was not autho­rized to dis­cuss the mat­ter on the record and demanded anonymity. Adul­tery, how­ever, is a crime under the Uni­form Code of Mil­i­tary Justice.

A senior defense offi­cial said that the FBI first noti­fied the Pen­ta­gon of the Allen mat­ter at 4:15 p.m. EST on Sun­day. The Pentagon’s top lawyer, Jeh John­son, then called Panetta’s chief of staff, Jeremy Bash, about 5 p.m. as Bash and Panetta were fly­ing to Hon­olulu aboard a mil­i­tary jet to begin a week­long Asia trip. Bash then informed Panetta.

Allen was not sus­pended from his mil­i­tary posi­tion, even though his nom­i­na­tion for pro­mo­tion is on hold. The White House will soon be decid­ing how many troops will remain in Afghanistan — and for what pur­poses — after the U.S.-led com­bat oper­a­tion ends in 2014. Allen has pro­vided his rec­om­men­da­tions to the White House and is key to those discussions.

Still more sub­plots in the story emerged Tues­day with news that both Allen and Petraeus wrote let­ters last Sep­tem­ber on behalf of Jill Kelley’s twin sis­ter, Natalie Khawam, in a messy cus­tody dis­pute. In 2011, a judge had denied Khawam cus­tody of her 3-year-old son, say­ing she “appears to lack any appre­ci­a­tion or respect for the impor­tance of hon­esty and integrity in her inter­ac­tions with her fam­ily, employ­ers and oth­ers with whom she comes in contact.”

Allen, in his let­ter, wrote of Khawam’s “matu­rity, integrity and stead­fast com­mit­ment to rais­ing her child.” Petraeus wrote that he’d been host for the Kel­ley fam­ily and Khawam and her son for Christ­mas din­ner, and he described a lov­ing rela­tion­ship with her son. That also indi­cated how close the Petraeus and Kel­ley fam­i­lies had been.

Kel­ley served as a sort of social ambas­sador for U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand in Tampa, host­ing par­ties for Petraeus when he was com­man­der there from 2008-10.

The friend­ship with the Petraeus began when they arrived in Tampa, and the Kel­leys threw a wel­come party at their home, a short dis­tance from Cen­tral Com­mand head­quar­ters, intro­duc­ing the new chief and his wife, Holly, to Tampa’s elite, accord­ing to staffers who served with Petraeus.

Such friend­ships among senior mil­i­tary com­man­ders and promi­nent local com­mu­nity lead­ers are com­mon at any base, a rela­tion­ship where the offi­cers invite local peo­ple to exclu­sive mil­i­tary events and func­tions, and the invi­tees respond by pro­vid­ing pri­vate fund­ing to sup­port troops with every­thing from morale-boosting “Wel­come Home” parades to assis­tance for injured com­bat veterans.

Petraeus aides say Jill Kel­ley took it to another level, win­ning the title of “hon­orary ambas­sador” from the coun­tries involved in the Afghan war for her exten­sive enter­tain­ing at her home on behalf of the com­mand, throw­ing par­ties that raised her social sta­tus in Tampa through the reflected glow of the four-star gen­eral in attendance.

Petraeus even hon­ored Kel­ley and her hus­band with an award given to them in a spe­cial cer­e­mony at the Pen­ta­gon just before he left the mil­i­tary for his post at the CIA, an aide said, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity because he was not autho­rized to com­ment on the mat­ter publicly.

White House spokesman Jay Car­ney, employ­ing under­state­ment, was asked about the rev­e­la­tions involv­ing Allen and said Obama “wouldn’t call it wel­come” news. Car­ney described Obama as “sur­prised” by the ear­lier news about Petraeus.

As he pre­pares for a sec­ond term, the pres­i­dent has hoped to run a method­i­cal tran­si­tion process, with the goal of keep­ing many Cab­i­net mem­bers and other high-ranking offi­cials in their posts until suc­ces­sors are con­firmed, or at least nom­i­nated. Petraeus’ res­ig­na­tion has dis­rupted those plans, leav­ing Obama with an imme­di­ate vacancy to fill and rais­ing ques­tions about how much other imme­di­ate shake-up the national secu­rity team can handle.

National Secu­rity Coun­cil spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama put Allen’s nom­i­na­tion on hold at the request of Panetta. The gen­eral suc­ceeded Petraeus as the top Amer­i­can com­man­der in Afghanistan in July 2011 and has been work­ing with Panetta on how best to pace the with­drawal of U.S. troops.

Vietor said in a writ­ten state­ment that Obama “remains focused on fully sup­port­ing our extra­or­di­nary troops and coali­tion part­ners in Afghanistan, who Gen. Allen con­tin­ues to lead as he has so ably done for over a year.”

The unfold­ing story caused a com­mo­tion on Capi­tol Hill as well, as law­mak­ers com­plained that they should have been told about the inves­ti­ga­tion earlier.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chair­man of the House Home­land Secu­rity Com­mit­tee, called the lat­est rev­e­la­tions “a Greek tragedy.”

Act­ing CIA Direc­tor Michael Morell met with Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Dianne Fein­stein, D-Calif., and rank­ing Repub­li­can Saxby Cham­b­liss of Geor­gia on Tues­day, to explain the CIA’s under­stand­ing of events that led Petraeus to resign. That ses­sion came ahead of meet­ings with the lead­ers of the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee on Wednes­day, accord­ing to con­gres­sional aides.

The chair­man and top Repub­li­can on the Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee said their panel would go ahead with Thursday’s sched­uled con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing on the nom­i­na­tion of Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dun­ford, who is to replace Allen as com­man­der of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, if Allen is indeed promoted.

Even though Petraeus has stepped down, Sen. Carl Levin, chair­man of the Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee, said the retired gen­eral should tes­tify about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Con­sulate in Beng­hazi, Libya, “if he has rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion.” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it was “absolutely imper­a­tive” that Petraeus tes­tify, since he was CIA direc­tor dur­ing the attack and vis­ited Libya afterward.

Asked by reporters if there was a national secu­rity breach with the Petraeus affair, Fein­stein said: “We’re going to hold an inquiry. We’re going to look at things. I have no evi­dence that there was at this time.” She said she expected Petraeus to tes­tify — “if not this week, then another week. That’s for sure.”

Fein­stein said did not believe that either Allen or Petraeus would release clas­si­fied information.

The FBI looked into whether a sep­a­rate set of emails between Petraeus and Broad­well might involve any secu­rity breach and con­cluded it did not.

The FBI searched Broadwell’s home in Char­lotte, N.C., Mon­day night, with her con­sent, accord­ing to a fed­eral law enforce­ment offi­cial, who requested anonymity because the offi­cial was not autho­rized to speak on the record about the investigation.

The offi­cial said the FBI just wanted to make sure there were no clas­si­fied doc­u­ments out of gov­ern­ment custody.

Posted by AP News on Nov 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.