Don't Try to Send Anonymous Emails

If you are ever considering sending an anonymous email you should probably forget about it. Or, you’ll at least want to take more precautions than the CIA director’s mistress did when she went to a Starbucks in North Carolina to write a nasty email about people in Tampa, Florida.

By the third week of June, the FBI had identified [Paula] Broadwell as the cyberstalker, [Special Agent Frederick] Humphries said, relating how he saw FBI videotape of “a BMW pulling up to a Starbucks in North Carolina and shortly thereafter the alleged subject of the case enters and logs on, and some of the e-mails were being sent, so they had a firm idea of who it was.”

Everything is on film.

This came out in a defamation case related to the outing of David Petraeus as an adulterer with a low regard for the basics of cybersecurity. It’s alleged that the FBI and through them the Obama administration smeared the victim of Broadwell’s cyberstalking in an effort to protect Petraeus in the lead-up to the 2012 election. However, the administration was always concerned that Petraeus would run for the Republican nomination (which is why, I believe, they first sent him to Afghanistan and then later made him CIA director in the first place). I don’t think they were particularly interested in protecting him, and Obama announced that he was being replaced with an hour or two of the exit polls being published on Election Day.

On the other hand, the CIA has some influence over the FBI and they watch each other’s backs. If Petraeus got special treatment, at least for a while, I think his position of power explains it better than any desire on the Obama team’s part to want to cover for him. I think they were ecstatic to be able to get rid of him.

3 Comments

Marie2 on April 20, 2015 at 2:14 pm

Every report I’ve read about this case contains much at that seem implausible to me. Including this one.

The story began in May 2012, when four-star Gen. John Allen began receiving e-mails from “kelleypatrol@gmail.com,” which “disparaged” Kelley and referenced an upcoming private dinner the Kelleys were hosting with “several senior foreign intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials,” according to the lawsuit.

The email troubled Allen given the potential security concern …

What did the “trouble Allen” do about this? Shared the e-mail (singular from this point on in the report) with “frightened the Kelleys, as it indicated that Mrs. Kelley was being followed or stalked, and raised serious concerns about her own safety and well being, particularly given the number of terrorist risks faced by CENTCOM leaders.

Didn’t earlier reports state that the chain of events began with e-mail threats from Broadwell to Kelley? When did it change to the first threat being sent to Gen Allen? Then, according to Humphries:

Jill Kelley reached out to Humphries, an FBI Agent whom she and her husband knew socially.

“She explained that Gen. Allen had received an odd e-mail,” Humphries testified, noting that “whoever sent these e-mails is either in close physical proximity or has penetrated the cyber security of these folks to include the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Director Petraeus, and I was worried and concerned for his safety, the safety of the generals.”

Why was it Kelley and not Gen Allen that contacted the FBI. To be more correct, Kelley didn’t contact the FBI but a friend of hers, Humphries, that worked for the FBI who in turn passed the information along to the appropriate FBI Special Agent. If this was the first and only report of this “cyberstalking” e-mail to Gen Allen, why wouldn’t senior FBI agents be suspicious of the source?

The FBI sure moved fast from that e-mail to pinpointing a NC video recording from several weeks earlier of a BMW parking near a Starbucks within the right time frame for logging on and sending the e-mail. Weren’t we told before that it was Petraeus’ insecure e-mail file that he and Broadwell used that led to her being identified as the one that sent Kelley threatening e-mails?

Whatever the motivations of the various actors in this drama were, there are behavioral oddities about all of them and none seem to have been telling the truth.

TarheelDem on April 20, 2015 at 3:40 pm

What is Paula Broadwell’s actual security clearance. When we know that, we’ll know more about what was going on. More than just a simple affair of a biographer falling for her subject it seems. That simple story would have had both Petreaus and Broadwell up to their necks in prosecution for leaking classified information.

There is some reason that they are not being given the Jim Risen, Chelsea Manning treatment. Unless both being goldbricks of the highest order brings this kind of immunity.

Oui on April 20, 2015 at 4:24 pm

Libel and defamation cases are of interest to Hollywood gossip pages only … Kelley and the ‘shirtless’ FBI agent. Blaming the Obama administration??

In particular, the lawsuit points to “cavalier sexual innuendo,” saying that the FBI’s investigation made it seem as if Kelley was having an affair with FBI Agent Frederick Humphries, a friend and the man she told about the emails.

U.S. District Judge Jackson threw out more than a dozen allegations in the lawsuit filed by Kelley and her husband, Scott, but allowed a single claim to move forward – a charge that the FBI and Defense Department violated the Privacy Act.

David Petraeus’ Sweetheart Plea Deal for Leaking ‘Black Books’ with Names of Covert Agents to His Biographer | FDL the Dissenter |

Petraeus faces only one charge [PDF]–the unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. It is under the criminal code in the section governing public employees. It is not in the part of the criminal code where espionage statutes can be found. Remarkably, Petraeus was not charged with violating the Espionage Act, even though the facts of the plea acknowledge he leaked “national defense information.”

His obstruction of justice, where he lied to the FBI, was not charged but included as an aggravating factor in his sentencing. He was not charged for lying on his CIA “security exit form.”

…
One of the clearest indicators that Petraeus engaged in egregious misconduct came in January of this year when Justice Department and FBI officials “briefed on the investigation” leaked to the press because recommended charges had been sitting on Attorney General Eric Holder’s desk for weeks if not months and no action had been taken.

Petraeus personally informed Broadwell when she asked for access to the “Black Books” that they contained highly classified information and “code words.”

Meet the Shirtless FBI Agent from the Petraeus Love Pentagon | Nov. 2012 |

Marie2 on April 20, 2015 at 2:14 pm

Every report I’ve read about this case contains much at that seem implausible to me. Including this one.

The story began in May 2012, when four-star Gen. John Allen began receiving e-mails from “kelleypatrol@gmail.com,” which “disparaged” Kelley and referenced an upcoming private dinner the Kelleys were hosting with “several senior foreign intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials,” according to the lawsuit.

The email troubled Allen given the potential security concern …

What did the “trouble Allen” do about this? Shared the e-mail (singular from this point on in the report) with “frightened the Kelleys, as it indicated that Mrs. Kelley was being followed or stalked, and raised serious concerns about her own safety and well being, particularly given the number of terrorist risks faced by CENTCOM leaders.

Didn’t earlier reports state that the chain of events began with e-mail threats from Broadwell to Kelley? When did it change to the first threat being sent to Gen Allen? Then, according to Humphries:

Jill Kelley reached out to Humphries, an FBI Agent whom she and her husband knew socially.

“She explained that Gen. Allen had received an odd e-mail,” Humphries testified, noting that “whoever sent these e-mails is either in close physical proximity or has penetrated the cyber security of these folks to include the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Director Petraeus, and I was worried and concerned for his safety, the safety of the generals.”

Why was it Kelley and not Gen Allen that contacted the FBI. To be more correct, Kelley didn’t contact the FBI but a friend of hers, Humphries, that worked for the FBI who in turn passed the information along to the appropriate FBI Special Agent. If this was the first and only report of this “cyberstalking” e-mail to Gen Allen, why wouldn’t senior FBI agents be suspicious of the source?

The FBI sure moved fast from that e-mail to pinpointing a NC video recording from several weeks earlier of a BMW parking near a Starbucks within the right time frame for logging on and sending the e-mail. Weren’t we told before that it was Petraeus’ insecure e-mail file that he and Broadwell used that led to her being identified as the one that sent Kelley threatening e-mails?

Whatever the motivations of the various actors in this drama were, there are behavioral oddities about all of them and none seem to have been telling the truth.
TarheelDem on April 20, 2015 at 3:40 pm

What is Paula Broadwell’s actual security clearance. When we know that, we’ll know more about what was going on. More than just a simple affair of a biographer falling for her subject it seems. That simple story would have had both Petreaus and Broadwell up to their necks in prosecution for leaking classified information.

There is some reason that they are not being given the Jim Risen, Chelsea Manning treatment. Unless both being goldbricks of the highest order brings this kind of immunity.
Oui on April 20, 2015 at 4:24 pm
Libel and defamation cases are of interest to Hollywood gossip pages only … Kelley and the ‘shirtless’ FBI agent. Blaming the Obama administration??
U.S. District Judge Jackson threw out more than a dozen allegations in the lawsuit filed by Kelley and her husband, Scott, but allowed a single claim to move forward – a charge that the FBI and Defense Department violated the Privacy Act.

David Petraeus’ Sweetheart Plea Deal for Leaking ‘Black Books’ with Names of Covert Agents to His Biographer | FDL the Dissenter |

Petraeus faces only one charge [PDF]–the unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. It is under the criminal code in the section governing public employees. It is not in the part of the criminal code where espionage statutes can be found. Remarkably, Petraeus was not charged with violating the Espionage Act, even though the facts of the plea acknowledge he leaked “national defense information.”

His obstruction of justice, where he lied to the FBI, was not charged but included as an aggravating factor in his sentencing. He was not charged for lying on his CIA “security exit form.”

…
One of the clearest indicators that Petraeus engaged in egregious misconduct came in January of this year when Justice Department and FBI officials “briefed on the investigation” leaked to the press because recommended charges had been sitting on Attorney General Eric Holder’s desk for weeks if not months and no action had been taken.

Petraeus personally informed Broadwell when she asked for access to the “Black Books” that they contained highly classified information and “code words.”

Don’t Try to Send Anonymous Emails

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