Scott Shane in the New York Times gives us the Petraeus timeline and does his best to bury both the lede and the story’s implications.
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.
A dozen grafs later, Shane offers this gem:
Under military regulations, adultery can be a crime. At the C.I.A., it can be a security issue, because it can make an intelligence officer vulnerable to blackmail, but it is not a crime.
So what we have is the FBI looking into an affair that wasn’t a security issue, unless it was, but in no case a crime.
Why, therefore, did this become the FBI’s business? Because, ipso facto, Petraeus was “vulnerable to blackmail.”
Next question: Once it became the FBI’s business on security grounds, why was it buried for months?
Given that Petraeus isn’t accused of revealing secrets, the only security issue was blackmail. And that possibility existed the moment he began the affair and lasted until he was outed.
After the election.
To sum up: If the FBI’s involvement was sparked by security concerns, and Petraeus was allowed to remain in his job for months until the election, someone somewhere cares more about politics than about America’s security. Who?
Let’s rewind 11 years to when the FBI and CIA couldn’t share intelligence related to Mohammed Atta and his 19 fellow 9-11 hijackers on account of that infamous “wall” erected by Clinton’s DOJ appointee Jamie Gorelick.
Today the FBI reacts to some well-connected woman’s complaints about harassing emails by snooping directly on the head spook…then doing nothing with the actionable intel.
It’s going to be a long four years.
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Comments
Petraeus has become the sacrifical lamb and for the narrative magicians in the Whitehouse a substitute for any serious discussion about Libya.
I predicted this last week when the news broke. I thought..here it comes. The new shell game. The Shadow was right in that corny film: The clouded mind sees nothing.
Mark my words. Ask a typical voter in two years what the Libya fiasco was all about. He/she will reply: Oh yeah..that was some sex candle by a military guy.
Hey. Its how things work.
How else do you explain Bill Clinton campaigning with Obama pushing “women’s issues”.
^^whoops..I meant scandal there not candle.LOL
you probably had it right the first time 🙂
From Obama? Democrats? Cabinet officials? Military Command?
NO to all of the above.
the country we used to live in is gone professor.
in the blink of an eye we have been transported against our will to a nation lead by liars and thieves.
Isn’t the FBI under Holder and the DOJ? My guess is that FBI chief Mueller told Obama and his gang during one of his weekly meetings with the WH. It was then put on hold just like the Benghazi embassy security and just like the Fast and Furious document reveal and just like Tim Geithner’s tax payments and just like…TBA.
“Given that Petraeus isn’t accused of revealing secrets”
This might not be correct. His girlfriend had some information on her computer that shouldn’t have been there. Petraeus claims someone else in Afghanistan must have given it to her but that doesn’t seem quite reasonable.
See this AP story: http://news.yahoo.com/petraeus-shocked-hear-emails-associates-215034687–politics.html
“Will We Ever Again Hear the Complete Truth About Anything?”
Not if Pres. Bumps has any say in the matter. But that is not the ONLY force in play…
“It’s going to be a long four years.”
Not necessarily. Scandals are MOUNTING. That dam could break…
But law enforcement officials did not notify anyone outside the F.B.I. or the Justice Department until last week …
And yet it’s been reported that Eric Cantor was advised of the matter sometime on or about October 27th, nearly three weeks ago, which means that John Boehner probably was also advised at that time too.
The priority of Obama/Axelrod/Jaret is all about politics. As long as their supporter gets their free stuff, who cares about running the government.
The “It’s just sex,” of the Clinton years has evolved into the “It’s just potential blackmail of the CIA Chief and she has full access to birth control” of the Obama years.
Times have changed, no doubt; but even in today’s politically correct, hypersensitive-to-indiscretions environment, it seems hypocritical for General Petraeus to have to resign for the very thing (on a much more mild scale) than Bill Clinton got a pass on.
The loss of a man of such brilliance from public service should not be taken lightly. Such losses can have deep consequences, unforseen at the time. Future historians, perhaps commenting on the decline of the American Empire, will take not of Petraeus’ fall from grace; and note this milestone, a sign of that America is no longer a serious society capable of greatness, or worthy of Great Power status.
seems Petraeus had a less strict ROE than he made his soldiers follow….
Don’t forget he was the architect of the surge.
Well, he was sort of the architect. Back in 2007, Dafydd at Big Lizards explained the counterinsurgency strategy being used by Petraeus. It matched, point by point, the strategy originally developed by France’s Lt.Col. David Galula to defeat “the Front de Libération Nationale in Algeria a half-century ago — a Moslem, anti-Western, antisemitic, totalitarian, collectivist, terrorist group that was trying to drive the French out of that colony.”
More Dafydd (the “Herman” he refers to is Arthur Herman, author of the article that Dafydd interpreted for us in his post):
“The winning strategy in Algeria was developed by Lt.Col. David Galula of the French army, following many years of increasing French military involvement to little effect. Galula managed to turn the war around in just a year or two by his new approach to fighting against the Algerian insurgency, the FLN. …
It is one thing to recognize the unique counterinsurgency genius of Lt.Col. David Galula; it is quite another to implement it in the present war… which, while similar to the Algerian insurrection, is also very different in many ways. That success reveals the unique genius of the other David, Lt.Gen. Petraeus:
Herman next shows how the current counterinsurgency strategy of Lt.Gen. David Petraeus, newly elevated to commander of all Multinational Force ground troops in Iraq (MNF-I), consciously matches the Galula strategy almost point by point… and thus stands an excellent chance of producing exactly the sort of victory that Galula achieved in Algeria in the late 1950s.
Lt.Gen. Petraeus understands Galula’s strategy better than any previous commander of MNF-I, and he has done a magnificant job of applying it to the present insurgency…”
Dafydd’s post can be found at:
http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2007/04/how_to_winlose.html
He thoroughly reviews the Galula strategy (red-pink-white is an easy-to-remember summary) and explains how Petraeus was using it in Iraq. It worked in Algeria, and it worked in Iraq. Credit goes to Petraeus for knowing military history (or having someone on staff who did), but NOT for creating the innovative counterinsurgency technique. That credit belongs entirely to Galula.
[…] a follow-up, read this piece by Joel Engel at Legal Insurrection. Share this:TwitterFacebookEmail from → 2012, Legal Insurrection, liberal media, Libya, media […]
We will never hear the complete truth about anything from the Obama regime.
It’s going to be a long four years.
For me, it’s already been a long four years. We are now trying for eight.
I tell ya, I have to give credit to General Petraeus. Compared to his, my sex life is quite… boring!
I would LOVE to have two men fighting for me over e-mails! But I guess I don’t have that required charm the General does. After all, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
All of this is like a feeding frenzy thrown out to the media to distract from Benghazi and what might have been tantamount to negligent homicide or wanton indifference to life. Opiate to occupy the little minds of the masses.
Make a major stain on a good man’s entire exemplary career. This crap is what he’ll be remembered for. I’m nauseous.
[…] What an odd way for a new President to celebrate his re-election? No sooner does he learn that he wins and this story begins. That is the way of this town. I’m curious to see the Congressional reaction that, with a few exceptions, has been muted. Frankly we may never know the complete story about what happened. But do I really want to know what the general was doing on his private time? […]
To put this in perspective, you need to understand the basics:
1. Institutionally, the CIA and the FBI are oil and water.
They.Hate.Each.Other.
Ever since Col Donovan (OSS) convinced FDR to strip the FBI of the counterintel mission outside the US. 70 years worth of spite.
Their approach to everything is different.
2. The FBI hates to be embarrassed (corollary: The FBI loves to embarrass the CIA)
Now you know all you need to know…