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So, how long does it take to get military assets stationed mere hours away from a firefight to a firefight? Apparently, it takes some 22 hours. When former Navy SEALs called for backup at the consulate in Benghazi on September 11, American assets were stationed both in Libya and in Italy. The help never came; both Navy SEALs were killed after a seven-hour ordeal. Fifteen hours after that, the military finally showed up. According to the Associated Press: New Pentagon details show that the first U.S. military unit arrived in Libya more than 15 hours after the attack on the...

Chadbourne & Parke white-collar criminal defense heavyweight Abbe Lowell has joined the fray surrounding the resignation of Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus, who stepped down Friday in light of the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealing that Petraeus had an extramarital affair with his biographer. Several news outlets reported Monday that Lowell is representing Jill Kelley, a 37-year-old Tampa woman who complained that she was receiving threatening emails, which turned out to be from Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate who chronicled Petraeus's life in a book published in January that she coauthored. Investigation into the emails led to the...

EXCERPT The FBI agent who started the case was a friend of Jill Kelley, the Tampa woman who received harassing, anonymous emails that led to the probe, according to officials. Ms. Kelley, a volunteer who organizes social events for military personnel in the Tampa area, complained in May about the emails to a friend who is an FBI agent. That agent referred it to a cyber crimes unit, which opened an investigation. However, supervisors soon became concerned that the initial agent might have grown obsessed with the matter, and prohibited him from any role in the investigation, according to the...

President Obama is considering asking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to serve as his next defense secretary, part of an extensive rearrangement of his national security team that will include a permanent replacement for former CIA director David H. Petraeus. Although Kerry is thought to covet the job of secretary of state, senior administration officials familiar with transition planning said that nomination will almost certainly go to Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. John O. Brennan, Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, is a leading contender for the CIA job if he wants it, officials said. If Brennan...

The woman who had an affair with David Petraeus denied she was in love with him in a bizarre interview she gave in the midst of their fling. Speaking in an interview while promoting her book in February, Paula Broadwell said without prompting: 'I am not in love with David Petraeus', in what was something of a Freudian slip. By that stage their affair was around five months having started when he became head of the CIA in September last year. It ended around July, according to reports. In the interview Broadwell, who is married with two young sons, revealed...

Former CIA director David H. Petraeus told the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair to stop sending threatening e-mails to a family friend, Jill Kelley, after a federal investigation determined who was behind the harassment. The move by Petraeus came in mid-summer after Kelley contacted a friend who worked as an FBI agent in Tampa, where she lived, beginning a process that would eventually force the former four-star former general to resign last week. The new information, provided by two law enforcement officials, helps fill in a summer timeline when Petraeus’s e-mail account became the subject of...

A social planner's complaints about email stalking launched the monthslong criminal inquiry that led to a woman romantically linked to former Gen. David Petraeus and to his abrupt resignation Friday as Central Intelligence Agency chief. A State Department official's complaints about email stalking launched the months-long criminal inquiry that led to a woman romantically linked to former Gen. David Petraeus and to his abrupt resignation Friday as CIA chief. Photo: REUTERS. .The emails began arriving in Jill Kelley's inbox in May, U.S. officials familiar with the probe said. Ms. Kelley, who helped organize social events at MacDill Air Force Base...

Retired Gen. David Petraeus, who resigned as CIA director last week after admitting an extramarital relationship, could possibly face military prosecution for adultery if officials turn up any evidence to counter his apparent claims that the affair began after he left the military. The affair between Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, both of whom are married, began several months after his retirement from the Army in August 2011 and ended four months ago, retired U.S. Army Col. Steve Boylan, a former Petraeus spokesman, told ABC News. Broadwell, 40, had extraordinary access to the 60-year-old general during six trips she...

Historians will likely judge David Petraeus to be the most effective American military commander since Eisenhower. He was, after all, the person who, more than any other, brought Iraq back from the brink of total disaster after he assumed command of U.S. forces there in 2007. To understand how daunting a task that was, recall that when Petraeus took over in Iraq, the country was embroiled in a civil war so vicious that civilians were dying at the rate of 90 a day. Iraq's government itself was fueling the violence because the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior was home to...

By Meghashyam Mali - 11/12/12 08:12 AM ET House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Pete King (R-N.Y.) on Monday said he found the FBI investigation that uncovered former CIA Director David Petraeus’s extramarital affair a “crisis” of “major proportions.” “This is a crisis of, I believe, major proportions. It’s not a usual political thing,” said King on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” King’s remarks come as lawmakers have raised questions about why they or President Obama were not informed sooner that the nation’s top intelligence officer was being investigated by the FBI.

So here is a bizarre twist in the David Petraeus resignation saga. Paula Broadwell, the biographer revealed as the woman having a secret affair with the now-former CIA director, gave a talk at the University of Denver on Oct. 26 in which she appeared to reveal sensitive, maybe even classified, information about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. The most interesting revelation is her claim that the CIA was holding several Libyan militia members prisoner, which may have prompted the attack.... [UPDATE: The CIA has denied holding prisoners at the annex, according to the DailyBeast's Eli...

Military expert Paula Broadwell, who was allegedly improperly involved with resigned CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, confirmed in October that the CIA annex in Benghazi asked for reinforcements when the consulate came under attack on September 11.... Broadwell was speaking at her alma mater, the University of Denver, on October 26. Her lecture, which is on YouTube under the title "Alumni Symposium 2012 Paula Broadwell," now has added value, because based on the recent disclosures, it can now be assumed that she indeed knew exactly what it was that Petraeus knew about the attack. Broadwell confirmed the reports on Fox...

The entire investigation began when Kelley "complained to an F.B.I. agent who is also a personal friend" about the e-mails she was receiving warning her to stay away from Petraeus, the Times reported. (An FBI agent is a good friend to have.) This agent then "helped get a preliminary inquiry started," one which would eventually lead to the discovery of Petraeus's extramarital affair. Even though the FBI looked into Petraeus and Broadwell and found no evidence of crimes or security breaches, sometime in October this same FBI agent leaked information about the scandal to GOP congressman Dave Reichert of Washington...

full title.....Revealed: Petraeus 'flew his biographer mistress to Paris on taxpayer funded trip after being named CIA chief' David Petraeus took his mistress with him on a government-funded trip to Paris after he was named director of the Central Intelligence Agency, it was claimed today. ~~SNIP~~ Buzzfeed also reports that Petraeus's unofficial press agent, Tom Ricks, helped Broadwell score a literary agent, a publisher and a six-figure deal for her biography. Broadwell isn't the only biographer of Petraeus's who has gotten special treatment from him.

I can only imagine three possible explanations, all of which should be taken with many grains of salt: 1. Intelligence from faraway conflict areas can be hazy, and the story got honestly confused. Who knows how long or convoluted the chain of information was from Benghazi to Broadwell, whether or not it went through Petraeus, and it’s not hard to imagine a misstatement or mistake getting amplified. 2. She made it up or exaggerated some other piece of information, possibly including the name-dropping implication of Petraeus’s knowledge, either deliberately or mistakenly. 3. The story is true, and she let slip...

The New York Times reports that the Petraeus affair has been known about since the summer: WASHINGTON — High-level officials at 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...

This seems like a pretty good reason to push the David Petraeus-Paula Broadwell affair from a boys-club peccadillo into a resignation-worthy event. According to a transcript of a speech by Broadwell at the University of Denver the week before the election, Broadwell told an audience that the reason for the September 11 attack on the Benghazi consulate was neither a YouTube video nor a celebration of the anniversary of 9/11, but a prison escape for jihadis secretly held by the CIA in its nearby annex. Late last night, the CIA denied this report of a secret prison in its now-abandoned...

The father of David Petraeus' mistress Paula Broadwell has defended his daughter today as an 'exceptional person', saying he supports her 100 per cent after details of her sordid affair with the decorated general were made public. General Petraeus's relationship with Broadwell, his biographer, was revealed on Friday after an FBI investigation which suspected corruption between the pair. Broadwell's father Paul Kranz, a retired high school basketball coach, suggested that the explosive revelations that led to Petraeus resigning as CIA director, have been used to cover up a bigger scandal.

Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa, Fla., reportedly alerted the FBI several months ago about threatening emails she had received from Petraeus alleged mistress, biographer Paula Broadwell, a senior military official told the Associated Press. The mystery woman who blew the lid off former CIA Director David Petraeus’ career-ending affair is also tied to the military — a sexy social liaison for an Air Force base in Tampa who says she and the ex-general are just “friends.” Jill Kelley, 37, a married mother of three from the Gulf Coast city, alerted the FBI several months ago after receiving emails from Petraeus’...

Jill Kelley, the other "other woman" in the General Petrateus scandal has hired a powerful Washington D.C. crisis management firm Smith & Company. Among other matters, the firm has handled "the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s leadership with its communication efforts as part of the War on Terrorism" and represented Monica Lewinsky. *snip* Kelley has also hired the attorney Abbe Lowell. Lowell has defended many political figures including John Edwards, Jim Wright, Dan Rostenkowski and Gary Condit and lobbyist Jack Abramoff.