President Barack Obama is to nominate John Brennan as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the White House has announced.
John Brennan, who has worked for the CIA for a quarter of a century, is currently the president’s chief counter-terrorism adviser.
John Brennan, who was considered for the role in 2008, is to be formally nominated later on Monday.
His appointment must be confirmed by the Senate.
President Barack Obama is to nominate John Brennan as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency
The FBI started probing emails sent by Paula Broadwell to Jill Kelley, a family friend of David Petraeus, in May 2012, and soon discovered that she had been in a romantic relationship with the decorated former general.
September 6, 2011:
David Petraeus was unanimously appointed to be the head of the Central Intelligence Agency after spending over 37 years in the military.
November 2011:
David Petraeus allegedly began his affair with Paula Broadwell, a former Army reservist and doctoral researcher who was writing a biography of Petraeus.
May 2012:
The FBI first officially knew that Paula Broadwall was sending threatening emails to Jill Kelley, a family friend of David Petraeus. There is no indication that Jill Kelley had any sort of romantic affair with David Petraeus, but the threatening nature of the emails from Paula Broadwell suggest that she felt threatened in some way by Jill Kelley’s close connection to David Petraeus.
End of Summer 2012:
Paula Broadwall’s affair with David Petraeus is thought to have formally ended in July, though it was not until the end of the summer that the FBI realized it was David Petraeus emailing Paula Broadwall because he had been using a Gmail account established under a pseudonym for their personal communications, some of which was sexually explicit in nature.
At an unspecified date at the end of the summer, the FBI investigators notified the Attorney General’s office – and Attorney General Eric Holder himself – because they needed the authority to interview Paula Broadwall and David Petraeus. In telling the AG, investigators were clear that they were looking into the possibility of pressing criminal charges against Paula Broadwell for either her threats against Jill Kelley or any illegal action that stemmed from the communication with David Petraeus.
David Petraeus allegedly began his affair with Paula Broadwell in November 2011, after he was appointed CIA director
September 2012:
Paula Broadwell was first interviewed at some point in September, when she admitted to the affair and turned over her computer.
October 2012:
In mid-October, Republican Representative David Reichert was told of a national security investigation involving David Petraeus by an unidentified FBI informant. David Reichert then forwarded that tip to Eric Cantor, the House Majority leader and the one of the most powerful Republicans in the country, on October 27.
The week before the Election, late October 2012:
From there, the circle began to widen as David Petraeus himself was interviewed the week before the Election, during which he admitted the affair but said that he was not the one to give Paula Broadwall the classified documents that investigators found on her computer.
She echoed that statement during her second interview with investigators on November 2. FBI and justice department officials then discussed their findings for three days, deciding that they did not have sufficient evidence to charge either Paula Broadwall or David Petraeus on a criminal level.
Election Day, November 6, 2012:
At 5:00 p.m. on Election Day, the FBI told Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about their investigation, and he waited until Wednesday evening to tell White House officials that David Petraeus was considering resigning.
Thursday November 8, 2012:
It was not until Thursday that President Barack Obama was informed, and he met with David Petraeus that day but did not immediately accept his resignation, waiting until Friday to let the disgraced General quit.
In the hours before David Petraeus’ public announcement on Friday, the circle drastically widened and Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee learned of the plan.
Dianne Feinstein contacted David Petraeus and asked him whether he thought it was truly necessary for him to leave his post. Citing his belief in leadership coming from the top-down, he said it was the best thing for him to do.
General David Petraeus took his mistress Paula Broadwell with him on a government funded trip to Paris after he was named director of the Central Intelligence Agency, according to news reports.
David Petraeus made the trip with 40-year-old Paula Broadwell, who has written a fawning biography of him, in July 2011, an unnamed source told Buzzfeed. He was heading to his new job as chief of the CIA at the time.
Sixteen months later, the four-star general has resigned from his post after his affair with Paula Broadwell was uncovered by the FBI.
Buzzfeed also reports that David Petraeus’s unofficial press agent, Tom Ricks, helped Paula Broadwell score a literary agent, a publisher and a six-figure deal for her biography.
Paula Broadwell isn’t the only biographer of David Petraeus’s who has gotten special treatment from him.
His first biographer, former U.S. News and World Reporter Linda Robinson, went to work for David Petraeus at U.S. Central Command shortly after publishing her book, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq.
General David Petraeus took his mistress Paula Broadwell with him on a government funded trip to Paris after he was named CIA director
David Petraeus’s affair with Paula Broadwell was uncovered when the FBI began an investigation after suspecting corruption between the pair.
He issued a statement acknowledging the affair after President Barack Obama accepted his resignation, which was announced by the CIA soon after.
“After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,” he said in the statement.
“Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the president graciously accepted my resignation.”
Holly Petraeus, the now humiliated wife of former CIA chief David Petraeus, sit just feet away from his mistress Paula Broadwell in June of last year, it was revealed today.
At the time of the photograph it is thought that the affair between the 60-year-old four-star general and his 40-year-old biographer was still continuing despite both being married with children.
And in a massive irony, both women are watching David Petraeus sit before the Senate Select Committee that confirmed his position as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency – the job he resigned from yesterday as a direct result of his affair.
But despite the public shaming of David Petraeus, one senior military source who worked with the former CIA Director leaves little room for doubt where those loyal to the general stand.
Blaming David Petraeus’ biographer and reported mistress, Paula Broadwell, for his downfall, the unnamed individual said that the 40-year-old author and West Point graduate went out of her way to “get her claws in him”.
Depicting Paula Broadwell as obsessed with using David Petraeus to further her own career, the unidentified source describes the married mother of two as a “shamless self-promoting prom queen”.
According to an interview the figure gave to businessinsider.com, Paula Broadwell latched onto David Petraeus soon after they met at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2006 as she was wrapping up her Master’s degree.
Holly Petraeus, the now humiliated wife of former CIA chief David Petraeus, sit just feet away from his mistress Paula Broadwell in June of last year
Claiming that Paula Broadwell used their shared backgrounds as West Point graduates and counterinsurgency experts to become close to David Petraeus, the source known as “James Downing” says that when news of the affair broke he realized immediately who it was with.
“It’s one of those things that, as soon as the announcement was made, I knew in an instant who it was,” said James Downing.
“Everything made sense. Who had exclusive access to him? Who wrote the hagiography on his life? Who framed their entire existence around his persona?”
Unflatteringly comparing her to Paula Jones the former Arkansas state employee who sued President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994, the source claims to have known Paula Broadwell for six years.
“When she started work on the bio she called me for background on one of the general’s previous deployments,” said James Downing.
“I probably gave her four hours or so, and we stayed in touch after that by email and an occasional phone call.”
However, over the course of those years and through her unfettered access to David Petraeus, James Downing claims that she underwent a dramatic shift in her personality.
“Over that time, she went from someone very likeable to a shameless self-promoting prom queen,” he said.
“A very disturbing shift in how she carried herself.
“If she knew P4 [Petraeus] was going to make an appearance at an event, she’d crash it without an invitation (she actually did this at the wedding of some close friends of mine) and photo bomb[ed] sic everyone there.”
The senior source who claims to know both parties, even made allowances for the retired four-star general whose policies allowed the U.S. to make a measured withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.
Even despite the Washington Post reporting that current and former U.S. military officials long had suspicions of David Petraeus being involved in infidelities.
“You’re a 60 year-old man and an attractive woman almost half your age makes herself available to you – that would be a test for anyone,” said James Downing.
