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See also my diary – David Petraeus: Downfall by Powers of His Own Making. Video’s will be posted in comments section.
Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan under investigation, scandal widens
(Reuter) – The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, is under investigation for alleged inappropriate communication with a woman at the center of the scandal involving former CIA Director David Petraeus, a senior U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.
The shocking revelation threatens to fell another of the U.S. military’s biggest names and suggests that the scandal involving Petraeus – a former four-star general who had Allen’s job in Afghanistan before moving to the CIA last year – could expand much further than previously imagined.
The U.S. official said the FBI uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communications – mostly emails and spanning from 2010 to 2012 – between Allen and Jill Kelley, who has been identified as a long-time friend of the Petraeus family and a Tampa, Florida, volunteer social liaison with military families at MacDill Air Force Base.
It was Kelley’s complaints about harassing emails from the woman with whom Petraeus had had an affair, Paula Broadwell, that prompted an FBI investigation, ultimately alerting authorities to Petraeus’ involvement with Broadwell. Petraeus resigned from his job on Friday.
Asked whether there was concern about the disclosure of classified information, the official, on condition of anonymity, said: “We are concerned about inappropriate communications. We are not going to speculate as to what is contained in these documents.”
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement given to reporters flying with him to Australia that he had asked that Allen’s nomination to be Commander of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe be delayed “and the president has agreed”.
Continues below the fold, a rogue FBI agent in Tampa …
FBI RAID, SHIRTLESS PHOTOS – ROGUE FBI AGENT
Evidence that the case involving Petraeus was not fully closed came late Monday when FBI agents searched the Charlotte, North Carolina house of Broadwell. Agents entered the house carrying boxes at around 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Tuesday) and about four hours later took away what appeared to be two computers and about 10 boxes. During the search, agents inside could be seen moving through multiple rooms, gathering materials and taking photos. They did not comment to reporters gathered outside the house.
Broadwell’s family was not at home at the time of the raid. The FBI and a Justice Department official would not comment on the reason for the raid.
U.S. officials had said in recent days that their investigation was largely complete and that prosecutors had determined it was unlikely they would bring charges in that case, which started when Kelley contacted an FBI agent in Tampa about harassing emails from an anonymous source.
That FBI agent, who has not been identified, has also come under scrutiny after it was discovered he had sent shirtless photographs of himself to Kelley, but “long before” this investigation, a law enforcement official told Reuters. The photographs were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The agent had never been on the Broadwell case, but had taken the information about the emails to the FBI cyber squad in Tampa, the law enforcement official said. The FBI agent who works in the Tampa office apparently became frustrated at the pace of the investigation and complained to a member of Congress about it, the official said.
The FBI investigation of the emails received by Kelley traced them to Broadwell and subsequently uncovered emails that revealed an affair between Broadwell and Petraeus.
