Oh yeah…. and just for sheer tentacle insanity watch for General John Allen to now get pulled into the mix…..  fyi.

As best we can understand the evolving narrative here is what it looks like:

Jill and Dr. Scott Kelley live in the Tampa / St. Pete area.  They are active in the military community with support for military families.   The Kelley’s do numerous fundraisers etc. and when Petraeus was assigned to station in Tampa the Kelley’s hosted a meet-n-greet with Holly and David Petraeus.  Mr and Mrs. Petraeus became friends with Mr. and Mrs. Kelley.

So Jill Kelley, a Petraeus family friend, began receiving odd and harrassing e-mails about her relationship with CIA director General David Petraeus:

“More like, ‘Who do you think you are? … You parade around the base … You need to take it down a notch,’” according to the source, who was until recently at the highest levels of the intelligence community and prefers not to be identified by name.

Kelley then reaches out to a family friend who is by profession in the FBI.   She asks if these unsourced e-mails reach the level of cyber-stalking.

The FBI “friend” takes her to a field office where he puts her in contact with the “cyber-crimes” division/agents.   There they essentially come to the conclusion that the statute on cyber-stalking does actually seem to apply, so they open a preliminary case.

The first step in that aspect of the case is to back-check the IPs etc to find the origin of the e-mails to Kelley. That investigative part finds Paula Broadwell as the origin of the e-mails to Kelley. So the FBI gets a subpoena to dig further into the Broadwell electronic mail accounts. *Note the investigation at this point is into Paula Broadwell*

During the research of her communication it becomes apparent that she is in contact with CIA Director General David Petraeus on some personal level.

While this is occuring, the original FBI friend (unknown) of Kelley is asking the Cyber division people on the case for updates. They provide him some information based on professional courtesy.   He in turn then relays this information to Jill Kelley herself, who then begins to inform her friend, General Petraeus, of the source. Essentially telling Petraeus “heads up” this woman you know has been identified as the origin of threatening e-mails to me. (*Note* whether Kelley knew of the affair aspect at this time is unknown).

Simultaneously, the FBI friend of Kelley sends a personal, perhaps flirtatious, picture to Kelley that the FBI becomes aware of (they are monitoring Kelley’s communication). The FBI, is not comfortable with the “non-professional” relationship between the FBI friend and Kelley, and they inform him he is ‘cut out’ of the story. (The FBI probably know that Kelley is also back-channelling information from this guy to her friend Gen Petraeus – any investigator would not like this loss of control).

As the CIA Director becomes involved in the story, the FBI friend, now ‘cut out’, then perceives the story/investigation as potentially being buried because of the people involved. So he takes the bit of “outsider” information he knows to a congressman, who in turn, takes the information to House Majority Whip, Congressman Eric Cantor.

Congressman Cantor then reaches out to the FBI and asks if General Petraeus is the subject of an investigation. Essentially, Cantor is long-armed by his inquiry because, in essence, General Petraeus is NOT the subject of an FBI investigation–Paula Broadwell is.

However, subsequent to the Cantor inquiry “higher ups”  (FBI Director Robert Mueller) within the FBI is then notified.   Mueller is told there is this investigation of this woman (Broadwell) which attaches her to CIA Director Petraeus in a rather sordid fashion.

The “affair is now outed.”

During the investigation it is noted that General Petraeus has been sexually involved with the Broadwell woman, however there is no law-breaking per se’ on the part of the General, nor is he lying or covering it up.

So technically, there was no investigation of General Petraeus, only Paula Broadwell. So technically, there is no notification to the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee because they don’t tell the oversight committee about affairs, or personal indiscretions, only about unlawful activity being investigated.

At some point (late summer – Sept.) the FBI head, Director Robert Mueller, now needs to tell the DOJ -Eric Holder- about Petraeus showing up on the radar of an investigation into another party.

Again, it appears no law was broken, and Petraeus was NOT the source of the investigation. The FBI interviews Petraeus to discuss, he admits, and they find no security breach – so it is not illegal.

After the investigation into Broadwell / Petraeus, a letter of investigative finding is filed (late Oct).

Subsequently, because Petraeus is outlined in the investigation of Broadwell, the Director of National Intelligence, Clapper, is notified (Nov). Clapper then calls Petraeus and tells him the affair is going to come out because two congressmen have also knowlege of it – further it compromises his position as CIA Director. Clapper recommends resignation.

The following day Clapper then tells the President of the conversation and recommendation. The following day President Obama calls Petraeus to the White House, they discuss, they agree on resignation.

Story could have stopped there….. it didn’t because…. Benghazi and….

…… as the newly awakened media begins looking backwards to Paula Broadwell they find these statements from Broadwell about CIA operations in Benghazi that could only have come from her relationship with General Petraeus, “pillow talk.”

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Given the relationship revelation, the speech at Colorado University by Broadwell, takes on a new level of meaning. As Broadwell outlines her statement that the Benghazi CIA “Annex” was also a CIA detention facility of sorts, it becomes obvious that she might be in posession of leaked CIA classified information. Her claim of Benghazi Militia members being held at the CIA compound is NOW the issue of investigation.

In essence–“Did Petraeus tell Broadwell CIA secrets?”  now becomes the story.

FBI agents were at the Broadwell home in North Carolina Monday night to carry out a consensual search that had been arranged with her lawyers, law enforcement sources said. The search was to locate additional classified material on computers or documents in the home, the sources said.

Broadwell appears to be cooperating with investigators in an effort to make this go away, to show that she has nothing else to hide, the sources said.

But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor knew of Petraeus’ affair with Broadwell almost two weeks before the former CIA director resigned his post.

A senior Cantor aide told ABC News that the Republican congressman from Virginia learned about the FBI investigation that brought the affair to light in a phone conversation with an FBI agent Oct. 27.

Cantor then asked his chief-of-staff to pass the information along to the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller. Cantor spoke to no one else about the investigation, the aide said.

Hurricane Sandy delayed the message to Mueller until Oct. 31. Petraeus admitted the extramarital relationship and submitted his resignation nine days later.  (more)

…. and oh yeah, watch out for the General Allen story to connect to Jill Kelley 🙁

[…]  In a new twist to the Gen.  David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American  commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged  “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received  threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an  extramarital affair.

Defense  Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters  aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI  referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.  Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on  Monday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American  commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of  anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was  prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not  explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents  from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review.  He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are  thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information.

He said  he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this  matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.  (More)

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