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It has been revealed that Paula Broadwell has taken refuge at her brother’s Washington D.C. home as she hides away from the fall-out of her affair with disgraced former CIA boss David Petraeus.
The 40-year-old mother-of-two is staying in the Petworth suburb of the capital as the scandal she set off by sending threatening emails to alleged love rival Jill Kelley blew up publicly on Friday – causing David Petraeus’ resignation.
This was confirmed this evening when the Associated Press released a photograph of Paula Broadwell standing in the kitchen wearing a pink top with a glass of red wine in hand looking like any other housewife on a weekday evening.
It was Paula Broadwell’s threatening emails to Jill Kelley, a Florida socialite who is a Petraeus family friend that led to the FBI’s discovery of the affair between the biographer-turned-mistress and the nation’s top spy-chief.
And in another jaw-dropping development it has been claimed that Paula Broadwell also sent emails to General John Allen under the pseudonym “KelleyPatrol” – calling the unpaid social liaison for the military a “seductress”, warning the general about becoming entangled in a relationship with her.
This in turn led to a dramatic twist when sources close to the internal investigation into the scandal said that the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan General John Allen exchanged emails likened to “phone sex” with 37-year-old Jill Kelley.
Paula Broadwell has taken refuge at her brother’s Washington DC home as she hides away from the fall-out of her affair with David Petraeus
General John Allen, who is married who two daughters and leads U.S. troops in Afghanistan denies any wrongdoing.
Officials claim his emails to Jill Kelley, who is also married with children, were simply friendly and not “inappropriate” or flirtatious.
However, sources have told Fox News that the emails between the pair were so explicit that they could be compared to “the equivalent of phone sex over email”.
Another official said that the Defense Secretary Leon Panetta would not have referred this matter to an internal investigator without being sure that he had to – such would be the effect on John Allen’s family and the U.S. war effort.
“This was a serious enough matter that those who examined the emails thought it should be referred to the secretary of defense, and the secretary made the decision to turn it over to the inspector general,” the official said to Fox News.
“He would not have thrust this into the limelight without good cause.”
Sources are reviewing between 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails between Jill Kelley and General John Allen which date from between 2010 to 2012.
The investigation into the burgeoning sex scandal is ongoing – on Monday evening FBI agents searched Paula Broadwell’s Charlotte, North Carolina home and left with electronic equipment.
And further deepening the mire is news that the FBI agent who began the investigation into David Petraeus was taken off the case after it was found that he sent shirtless pictures of himself to Jill Kelley.
He is facing an internal investigation.
David Petraeus and his biographer-turned-mistress Paula Broadwell used some handy espionage tradecrafts to keep their liaisons a secret for nearly a year.
David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell would communicate using a dummy Gmail account that they set up as a modern version of the classic spy “dead drop” trick, where they would leave their messages in the account’s draft folder to save it for the other to see.
Rather than sending each other actual emails, which would create an electronic paper trail, they would write messages and save them as drafts.
The other would then log in to the same account, view the message, delete it and then leave a response that would also be saved rather than sent.
Dead drops, wherein spies leave messages for their sources or informants at a neutral location and then the individual would go and pick up the message before returning with their own response.
David Petraeus and his mistress Paula Broadwell used some handy espionage tradecrafts to keep their liaisons a secret for nearly a year
In the digital era, however, Gmail’s draft folder creates an easy space for teenagers, terrorists, and apparently philandering politicians to do the same.
David Petraeus was the one to set up the fake account in this case, and he used a pseudonym to do so.
The pair may never have been caught if Paula Broadwell didn’t go against the papertrail the save-but-don’t-send trick safeguarded the lovers from.
The scandal came under investigation only after Paula Broadwell used one of her email accounts to send anonymous emails to Florida housewife Jill Kelley.
Jill Kelley, the socialite at the centre of the David Petraeus sex scandal who sent thousands of “inappropriate” emails to General John Allen, “flirted outrageously” with a string of military chiefs, a friend claimed today.
In a dramatic new twist in the David Petraeus sex scandal on Monday night, it emerged that General John Allen exchanged 20,000 to 30,000 messages – as many as 40 a day – with Jill Kelley, the woman who sparked the probe into the CIA boss.
Jill Kelley, an unpaid social liaison for the military in Tampa, tipped off the FBI about threatening emails from David Petraeus’ mistress, Paula Broadwell – exposing his affair and leading to his resignation.
General John Allen, who is married with two daughters and leads U.S. troops in Afghanistan, denies any wrongdoing. Officials claim his emails to Jill Kelley, who is also married with children, were simply friendly.
And Jill Kelley is clearly not shy of the extra media attention, as the glamorous socialite confidently strutted outside her home for the second day in a row today – while Paula Broadwell remains in hiding.
Jill Kelley, who kicked off an FBI probe into General David Petraeus, watches TV coverage of his affair with Paula Broadwell
Paula Broadwell sent Jill Kelley half a dozen emails from anonymous accounts earlier this year warning Kelley to stay away from David Petraeus. In one, she accused Jill Kelley of groping the CIA boss under the table.
She also accused Jill Kelley of “parad[ing] around the base”, adding: “You need to take it down a notch” and “Who do you think you are?”
A friend today described how Jill Kelley would “flirt outrageously” with senior military figures invited to parties at her $1.3 million mansion, saying: “She was a very sexy lady and she knows it.”
“She always looks a million dollars in her designer dresses and heels. She turns heads,” said the friend, who did not wish to be named but has attended numerous parties at her home.
“At the parties she would flirt with all the senior military guys. She’s touchy feel-y. Her hands would be on their arms. She was attentive. It’s not hard to see why she had some guys under her spell.”
A top U.S. official revealed that some of the emails exchanged between Jill Kelley and John Allen from 2010 until 2012 were “flirtatious”.
John Allen, 58, succeeded David Petraeus in Afghanistan and was due to take over as NATO’s top commander – but his appointment has been suspended while his relationship with Jill Kelley is investigated.
If General John Allen is found to have engaged in an extramarital affair – a crime in the military – he faces being court martialed, bringing a spectacular fall from grace and the end to a glittering army career that has spanned nearly 40 years. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Today it was revealed that Jill Kelley had access to “influential figures in the global area” before she was even out of school.
Jill Kelley, now 37, was a member of the World Affairs Council while still a student at Lower Moreland High School in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania.
Students were taken on trips and given the opportunity to meet dignitaries at the highest level including presidents, prime ministers and princes.
Among those who have spoken at her local branch of the respected organization include Prince Albert of Monaco, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
General David Petraeus also made an appearance, but it was in 2010 and long after she had left school.
Jill Kelley has become the central figure in the scandal which has caused David Petraeus, 60, to step down as head of the CIA and forced General John Allen to stand down from his post leading US troops in Afghanistan.
General John Allen, who is married, sent her between 20,000 to 30,000 e-mail messages, some of which were of an inappropriate nature.
General David Petraeus’ mistress, Paula Broadwell, an Army reservist who was also his biographer, is said to have emailed Jill Kelley and warned her to back off because she was jealous, which led to the affair becoming public when the FBI got involved.
Judging by pictures in her high school yearbook, Jill Kelley was glamorous even at the age of 18 and well aware of her charms.
She posed wearing a black dress and pearls around her neck with her jet black hair tumbling over her left shoulder.
Her body is turned to the left and she has a radiant grin on her face.
Jill Kelley appears not to have been a prominent member of school but did take part in a number of activities, notably the World Affairs Council.
According to the Philadelphia branch of the nationwide non-profit organization, it was founded in 1949 to inform people of all ages “on matters of national and international significance”.
Among the other guest speakers have been Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Joe Biden, Al Gore and Donald Rumsfeld.
Its website says: “The Council provides its members and the greater Philadelphia community with access to influential figures in the global area as well as opportunities to visit fascinating destinations through its unique travel program.”
Jill Kelley, now 37, was a member of the World Affairs Council while still a student at Lower Moreland High School in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania
Jill Kelley – who appears in the yearbook under her maiden name Khawam – was also a “Mathlete” and would have competed against other schools in math competitions.
She claims to have written for student newspaper Lion’s Roar which allowed students to “freely vent their creative juices”, the yearbook says.
The newspaper also started up a world news section because, according to its 1993 editor Sharon Herring, there was concern students were “lacking in their knowledge of the outside world|.
Another string to Jill Khawam’s bow was the Future Business Leaders of America whose members took part in competitions where they learned skills that would be useful at work, such as typing and accounting.
In the yearbook Stephanie Simon said: “I believe that FBLA not only exposes students to the important field of business, but it also aides the community.
“Students are able to get a taste of the real world in more ways than one.”
Jill Khawam also appears to have had a strong moral compass and was a member of SADD – Students Against Drunk Driving – another group called Students For a More Conscious Society, the student council, a community outreach program called Operation Smile and the Red Cross
Her other activities were computer club, science club, orchestra basketball, cross country running, field hockey, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field and orchestra.
Jill Khawam grew up in Philadelphia with her family, who emigrated there from Lebanon in the 1970s.
Her parents, John and Marcelle Khawam, once ran a Middle Eastern restaurant and now live in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania.
In her yearbook entry, Jill Khawam’s twin sister Natalie Kwaham wears the same clothes as her sister and is also smiling.
Her activities included concert choir, the World Affairs Council and Students For A More Conscious Society.
The sisters moved to Tampa, Florida around ten years ago where they both became regulars on the social circuit.
Jill Kelley’s husband Scott works as a surgeon, while Natalie Khawam is a lawyer who specializes in dealing with whistleblowers, which has newfound irony considering Jill was the one whose contact with the FBI led to the resignation of a well-respected general and the investigation into another.
A friend, who has known Jill Kelley for almost a decade, said that the revelation that she exchanged between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communications with General John Allen comes as a surprise.
“This has come as a complete shock. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, but no one in her circle saw this coming,” said one of her friends.
“Jill was well known for throwing parties where the military attended and she reveled in her role as honorary ambassador but sending all those emails to a general is another thing.”
Her brother, David Khawam, has also revealed their fear that she will be branded the “other woman”.
Speaking to the Today show, he said: “This is something that is going to brand her for life.
“My sister, number one, is a mother. She has three kids and is extremely dedicated to those kids.
“Number two she is a wife. She is extremely dedicated to her husband and he to her. For her to have an affair with General Petraeus is ludicrous.”
Jill Kelley regularly kept in touch with then-General David Petraeus when he became commander of the Afghan war effort, the two exchanging near-daily emails and instant messages, two of his former staffers say.
But those messages were exchanged in accounts that his aides monitored as part of their duties and were not romantic in tone, the staffers said.
David Khawam added that he expected his sister, who has hired the crisis management firm employed by Monica Lewinsky and the attorney who represented John Edwards earlier this year, to address reports about her involvement with two of the top US military chiefs.
General John Allen and his wife Kathy were pictured laughing as they rip open Christmas presents and serious-faced as they support each other at official events.
But this solidarity now threatens to crumble, after John Allen was found to have sent thousands of “inappropriate” emails to military socialite Jill Kelley, launching an FBI and Pentagon investigation.
The general, who leads U.S. troops in Afghanistan, allegedly exchanged tens of thousands of messages with Jill Kelley, the Florida housewife who sparked the probe into the David Petraeus affair.
But intimate photo albums give a glimpse into John Allen’s happy family life, while his daughter’s blog reveals how their support and love of music helped her realize her dream of becoming a singer.
John Allen, who grew up in Oakton, Virginia and has enjoyed a glittering military career spanning nearly four decades, has a wife, Kathy, and two daughters, Bobbie and Betty.
In photographs from the family Christmas, Kathy Allen, who calls herself “PudgeMom” on social networking sites, laughs as she opens presents and chats with her family.
In photographs from the family Christmas, Kathy Allen, who calls herself PudgeMom on social networking sites, laughs as she opens presents and chats with her family
Bobbie Allen, 27, has revealed how her military upbringing shaped her, and has told how she was inspired to sing by her mother, who would always sing in the house.
Now living in Washington DC, Bobbie Allen revealed that music helped her during a transient childhood.
She called Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, home twice while growing up – and even performed there last year.
According to Bobbie, her mother Kathy Allen carried their stereo system by hand to every new duty station they moved to and it was the first thing they set up in their new homes, saying: “That’s when life could begin.
“If we’d had a bad day at school, she would put on happy music and make us dance. Music was the fifth member of our family.”
Writing on her blog, Bobbie Allen said she was inspired by Karen Carpenter, calling her voice “liberating and inspiring”.
Bobbie Allen said she always kept her tape deck playing, and sang to herself in the backseat of the car as the family moved around.
Natalie Khawam, the twin sister of Jill Kelley, the Petraeus sex scandal whistle blower and now alleged “sweetheart” of General John Allen, is the latest person to be named in the saga, after it emerged both men wrote a letter to help her in a nasty custody battle with her ex-husband.
Divorced mother-of-one Natalie Khawam, 37, lives in the same $1.3 million house in Tampa, Florida, as her sister Jill Kelley and cancer surgeon husband Scott.
It emerged today that Generals David Petraeus and John Allen wrote letters supporting the child-custody battle between Natalie Khawam – who was described as being “psychologically unstable” – and her ex-husband Grayson Wolfe.
The New York Post reported David Petraeus wrote the letter just two months ago, supporting a motion to overturn a ruling made almost a year earlier by a judge.
At this time, the judge resoundingly denied custody to Natalie Khawam, saying he had serious concerns and reservations over her mental stability and her grasp on reality.
He also cited her with “outrageous conduct”, “bad faith litigation tactics”, and “illogical thinking” before awarding full custody to the father, Grayson Wolfe – who had been unable to see his child for more than a year.
According to court documents, David Petraeus wrote in the September 20 letter to the DC judge: “My wife and I have known Natalie for approximately three years, getting to know her while serving in Tampa, Florida, through our friendship with Dr. and Mrs. Scott Kelley.
“It is clear to me that [child’s name] would benefit from much more time with his Mother and from removal of the burdensome restrictions imposed on her when she does get to spend time with him.”
David Petraeus added that he had observed Natalie Khawam and her son, “including when we hosted them and the Kelley family for Christmas dinner this past year. In each case, we have seen a very loving relationship – a mother working hard to provide her son enjoyable, educational and developmental experiences”.
A separate letter from General John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, dated two days later said: “Natalie clearly loves [child’s name] and cherishes each and every opportunity she has to spend time with him. She is a dedicated mother.
“In light of Natalie’s maturity, integrity and steadfast commitment to raising her child, I humbly request your reconsideration of the existing mandated custody settlement.”
David Petraeus and John Allen helped Natalie Khawam, the twin sister of Jill Kelley, in a nasty custody battle with her ex-husband
John Allen said he got to observe the mother and child “at command social functions”.
He is currently under investigation by the FBI after the agency discovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communication between him and Jill Kelley.
According to the New York Post, a judge in November 2011 gave Grayson Wolfe sole custody of the couple’s son after finding that Natalie Khawam, a lawyer, repeatedly lied under oath and filed false domestic-violence and child-abuse claims against her husband.
Natalie Khawam was also accused of defying court orders to allow her estranged husband Grayson Wolfe access to their son and sent emails to his friends and colleagues telling them he was a “horrible father and husband”.
She was reprimanded for giving false evidence and a psychiatrist found the allegations against her ex-husband were a “part of an ever-expanding set of sensational accusations…that are so numerous, so extraordinary and so distorted that they defy any common-sense view of reality”.
But Natalie Khawam’s troubles don’t just end there. She is also currently being sued in Montgomery County for failing to pay the lawyer’s fees in her divorce – believed to be in the region of $100,000.
The case has been on the court docket for nearly a-year-and-a-half but took a backward step in April when she filed for bankruptcy.
On the bankruptcy filing, Natalie Khawam lists $3.2 million in unpaid debt, plus $53,000 she owes the Internal Revenue Service.
Earlier this year, Natalie Khawam’s former employer, prominent Tampa Bay lawyer Barry Cohen, claimed that she “fraudulently omitted Rolex watches, sable mink furs and a diamond ring” from her list of assets in the April bankruptcy.
In July of this year, Natalie Khawam and her attorney Will Florin sued Barry Cohen on six counts including sexual harassment and breach of contract claims.
Natalie Khawam said that Barry Cohen owed her money and failed to properly take action when she reported a sexual harassment issue involving a financial officer doing work for the law firm.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Barry Cohen is trying to dismiss the case and is fighting back with claims of perjury and bankruptcy fraud against Natalie Khawam.
He told the paper he has been delving into her background ever since the filing and, as well as discovering the bankruptcy documents, he found the 19-page child custody order from the Washington DC, superior court judge calling Natalie Khawam out in 2011 for a lengthy “history of abusing the litigation process” and a “willingness to say anything, even under oath, to advance her own personal interests”.
Barry Cohen said in August the lawsuit has only further inspired him to continue advocating for his own clients.
“It takes a long time to build a good reputation, and it only takes a one accusation to tear it down,” Barry Cohen said.
“What this did was re-inspire me to protect the people I protect. It makes me able to better empathize when they’re falsely accused and gives me more motivation because I’ve been there.”
Paula Broadwell sent an anonymous email to General John Allen about Florida socialite Jill Kelley, as she suspected Kelley of having a romantic relationship with David Petraeus as well.
The cyber love triangle expanded as it was revealed today that John Allen was electronically connected with Paula Broadwell after he received an email from one of her dummy accounts. He then went on to tell Jill Kelley, a married mom that he denies having an affair with, who in turn reported the emails to the FBI.
Because of their respective involvement in the unfolding case, the Pentagon has requested access to the 20,000-30,000 pages of communications between John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Jill Kelley.
In light of the extra marital affair between Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus, Pentagon spokesmen have been quick to dismiss ideas of a similar affair between John Allen and Jill Kelley though their confirmation of some “inappropriate communication” among those thousands of pages of emails has sparked further curiosity about the nature of their relationship.
One divulged example reported in The Washington Post was John Allen’s use of the word “sweetheart” in referring to married Jill Kelley, but a senior Pentagon official said that proves nothing as the 58-year-old general is from Virginia and the word is used in the south as a platonic phrase and not one demonstrating a romantic relationship.
Paula Broadwell sent an anonymous email to General John Allen about Florida socialite Jill Kelley, as she suspected Kelley of having a romantic relationship with David Petraeus as well
Jill Kelley runs in the same social circle as both David Petraeus and John Allen as she serves as an unpaid social liaison for the military and often hosts events at her million-dollar home located only a couple of miles from MacDill Air Force base. John Allen served there from July 2008 to June 2011.
John Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded David Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.
Paula Broadwell reportedly sent the emails from dummy accounts she had set up to Jill Kelley, FoxNews.com reported.
Spooked by the bullying in her inbox, Jill Kelley notified the FBI.
A government official told the New York Post that the emails contained such language as: “I know what you did”, “back off” and “stay away from my guy”.
What followed was an intense FBI probe in which Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus – both married with two children – admitted to investigators that they had engaged in on-the-side sexual trysts.
The emails were not the first time Paula Broadwell had raised red flags while behind a computer.
Advisers to David Petraeus had become suspicious Paula Broadwell due to her playful Facebook status updates they claim disclosed sensitive details about military operations in Afghanistan.
General John Allen, who is now under investigation by the FBI for allegedly exchanging thousands of “inappropriate” emails with military socialite Jill Kelley, simply called her “sweetheart”, a top official has claimed today.
In a dramatic new twist in the David Petraeus sex scandal, General John Allen reportedly exchanged 20,000 to 30,000 emails with Jill Kelley, the woman who sparked the probe into the CIA boss.
Jill Kelley, a housewife and unpaid social liaison for the military in Tampa, tipped off the FBI about threatening emails from David Petraeus’ mistress, Paula Broadwell, exposing the affair and leading to his resignation.
These latest revelations mean General John Allen, who is married with two adult daughters, is the second top military official to be dragged into the David Petraeus scandal.
John Allen, who is under FBI investigation for exchanging thousands of inappropriate emails with Jill Kelley, simply called her sweetheart
John Allen, 58, succeeded David Petraeus in Afghanistan and was due to take over as NATO’s top commander – but his appointment has been suspended while his relationship with Kelley is investigated.
A top official told the Washington Post that John Allen simply used the word “sweetheart” – which he said proves nothing as the general is from Virginia, where it is used as a platonic phrase.
“He’s never been alone with her,” the official said.
“Did he have an affair? No.”
The senior official added that Kathy Allen, the general’s wife, and Jill Kelley were “good friends”.
An anonymous Wikipedia editor may have tried to reveal General David Petraeus’s extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell back in January this year.
In January, Paula Broadwell appeared on the Daily Show to pitch her book about the CIA director titled All In.
The day after Wikipedia editor Vanobamo created a page for the author, which is common practice on the user-contributed online encyclopedia.
But less than an hour later an anonymous editor logged on to the website and wrote: “Petraeus is reportedly one of her many conquests.”
It was the anonymous user’s first and only Wikipedia edit, reports Gawker.
Their post, with the IP address 64.101.72.113, was deleted within an hour by editor Dsutton, who flagged it as “libel/vandalism”.
At the time news of their affair had not surfaced and Wikipedia reserves the right to delete libelous material posted on the website.
An anonymous Wikipedia editor may have tried to reveal David Petraeus’s affair with Paula Broadwell back in January this year
But now in hindsight, is unknown if Paula Broadwell’s Wikipedia outing was speculation by a Daily Show viewer, or if the poster had secret knowledge of David Petraeus cheating on Holly his wife of 37 years.
Since news of the posting was released, several attempts have been made to track the IP address and determine the poster.
An IP address is an address assigned to every computer and other devices are logged onto the Internet to uniquely define them.
When Gawker ran it through the American Registry for Internet Numbers, they failed to come up with a name, but the result showed a company called Cisco Systems, Inc.
They explained that this means “Cisco, the tech giant based in San Jose, was given that IP address, but anyone could have been using it, and it could have been ported to another location around the world”.
Before last Friday Paula Broadwell’s Wikipedia page was quite bare, but then former CIA director David Petraeus resigned.
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Holly Petraeus, wife of disgraced ex-CIA chief David Petraeus, can hardly imagine a life outside the military as she counts four generations of servicemen, “my great-grandfather, grandfather, father, husband, brother”.
Their son, Stephen Petraeus, 25, is in the army too.
Daughter Anne Petraeus, 29, teaches English overseas.
“I am privileged to have two extraordinary men — my husband and my father — in my life,” Holly Petraeus, now 59, said during an interview in 2009.
Her father, the late Army Gen. William A. Knowlton, was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy when Holly met David Petraeus on a blind date in the fall of their senior year.
Holly Knowlton was a French and English major at Dickinson College. David Petraeus was a West Point cadet.
“He had no idea the blind date was with <<the boss’ daughter>> until it was too late to get out of it!” Holly Petraeus said.
Holly and David Petraeus married in 1974, two months after he graduated at the top of his class
Holly and David Petraeus married in 1974, two months after he graduated at the top of his class. For nearly 38 years, Holly Petraeus has been holding down the home front as her husband climbed the ranks.
Asked for adjectives that best describe her, Holly Petraeus supplies two: self-sufficient and reliable.
“I’ve never lived more than four years in one place,” she said.
Holly Petraeus has moved many times and lived multiple times in Washington, but never gets rid of books. She favors biographies. She has been reading about Islam and the Middle East, but has not been to Iraq.
General John R. Allen is the second top military official dragged into the David Petraeus sex scandal after being accused of sending thousands of “inappropriate” emails to socialite Jill Kelley, the woman responsible for exposing the former CIA director’s extra-marital affair.
General John R. Allen, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, is under investigation by the FBI after the agency discovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communication between him and 37-year-old housewife Jill Kelley.
Jill Kelley entered the public eye when she was the target of threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, which the FBI used to uncover the affair between Broadwell and david Petraeus, leading to the former general’s resignation from the CIA.
John Allen, 58, who is married with two daughters, succeeded David Petraeus in Afghanistan and was due to take over as NATO’s top commander – his appointment has been suspended while his relationship with Jill Kelley is investigated.
John Allen, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1976, was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.
He lives in Washington D.C. with his wife, Kathy, with whom he has two daughters, Bobbie and Betty. Betty is a teacher, while Bobbie, a 27-year-old graduate of Virginia Tech, is a singer and released her debut album last year.
John Allen, who is married with two daughters, succeeded David Petraeus in Afghanistan and was due to take over as NATO’s top commander
After growing up in Oakton, Virginia, John Allen graduated with military honors from the Naval Academy with the class of 1976. He is a 1998 distinguished graduate of the National War College.
John Allen holds a master of arts degree in national security studies from Georgetown University, a master of science degree in strategic intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College, and a master of science degree in national security strategy from the National War College.
General John R. Allen assumed his duties as the Commander, International Security Assistance Force – Afghanistan and United States Forces – Afghanistan on July 18, 2011.
John Allen played a key role in countering the Iraq insurgency between 2006 and 2008. He then oversaw a surge in US troops in Afghanistan in battling the Taliban.
In Afghanistan, General John R. Allen commanded coalition troops from 50 different countries.
He was nominated in October by President Barack Obama to be Supreme Allied Commander Europe and commander of the U.S. European Command – that is now on hold.
But if John Allen is found to have engaged in an extramarital affair – a crime in the military – he faces being court martialed, bringing a spectacular fall from grace and the end to a glittering army career that has spanned nearly 40 years.
President Barack Obama had nominated John Allen to take over as chief of the military’s European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, but that nomination is now on hold as the Pentagon investigates Allen’s relationship with Kelley, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters.
John Allen had been expected to take that new post in early 2013 if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.
The FBI notified the Pentagon of its investigation into John Allen’s communications with Jill Kelley on Sunday evening, an unnamed senior defence official said.
Leon Panetta said he immediately notified the White House and top leaders in Congress of the investigation.
Leon Panetta said John Allen would remain as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan for now, “while the matter is under investigation and before the facts are determined”.
Pentagon officials have declined to comment on the nature of the relationship between Jill Kelley and John Allen except to say that it was “potentially inappropriate”.
Officials have not said whether any national security secrets were breached.
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.
US Attorney General Eric Holder is under fire as questions emerge over why he did not tell President Barack Obama that David Petraeus was having an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.
Eric Holder was told by the FBI that they were investigating the relationship between the director of the CIA and Paula Broadwell in late summer, but appears not to have shared the information with anyone else.
Barack Obama did not find out about the scandal until Wednesday – just two days before David Petraeus resigned – even though multiple senior politicians had apparently been aware of it for months.
The revelation that Eric Holder knew about David Petraeus’ infidelity could increase pressure on Barack Obama to replace him when he puts together his Cabinet for the next four years.
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.
Towards the end of the summer, the FBI contacted Eric Holder’s office in order to seek the authority to interview Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus.
The Attorney General, a longtime ally of Barack Obama, must have known about the affair from this point, but did not tell the President about it despite the possibility it could end the career of David Petraeus, one of the most respected soldiers of his generation.
Conservatives – who have long opposed Eric Holder over his role in the botched “Fast and Furious” gun-running investigation – attacked the Attorney General over his silence.
“The idea that the White House didn’t learn of this potential problem until Election Day, I just find incomprehensible,” John Bolton, former ambassador to the UN, told Fox News.
“Did the Attorney General sit on this information for two months?”
Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz added: “Notification should have also gone to the President – immediately.”
Attorney General Eric Holder is under fire as questions emerge over why he did not tell President Barack Obama that David Petraeus was having an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell
David Petraeus’ affair: who knew what and when. The timeline of the downfall
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.
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.
Paula Broadwell, the woman who had an affair with David Petraeus, denied she was in love with him in a bizarre interview with Arthur Kade 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 David Petraeus became head of the CIA in September last year. It ended around July, according to reports.
In the interview Paula Broadwell, who is married with two young sons, revealed that she had sent David Petraeus’ wife Holly a copy of her fawning biography of her husband – and claimed that she loved it.
Paula Broadwell, 40, also revealed for the first time the extent of the access that he gave her, including private papers going back 30 years.
The disclosure could reignite the debate about what information she was given access to.
If David Petraeus, 60, was prepared to show Paula Broadwell his intimate correspondence with mentors then he may have allowed her to see classified information too.
Controversially, Paula Broadwell even claims that it was David Petraeus’ idea, and not hers, to turn her dissertation project on military leadership into the book it became: All In: The Education Of General David Petraeus.
The interview was carried out by Arthur Kade, a former financial advisor turned humanitarian who also conducts celebrity interviews.
Paula Broadwell, the woman who had an affair with David Petraeus, denied she was in love with him in a bizarre interview with Arthur Kade she gave in the midst of their fling
Arthur Kade and Paula Broadwell sit in front of an open fire for 13 minutes during which she speaks at length about the book.
Paula Broadwell says: “I conducted over 700 interviews, you can appreciate how time consuming that is, and to transcribe then and I was trying to do this all on my own as a dissertation project.
“But when I realized the opportunity I had to present this portrait of strategic leadership – you know it’s not a hagiography, I’m not in love with David Petraeus, but I think he does present a terrific role model for young people, for executives, for men and women.
“There’s a great role model there who is values oriented, who speaks the truth to power, who shows great example of taking initiative and other qualities we should be all be interested in ourselves and promoting in others.”
Paula Broadwell said that she had presented David Petraeus with a copy of her book but added that “he says he hasn’t read it”.
She said: “I sent him and his wife a copy and I know his wife, Holly Petraeus, read it and she had great things to say.
“He’s tracking how the book is being received and as an academic mentor of mine, if you will, he’s proud of me.”
Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus first met in 2006 when she asked him if he could be a case study in her Harvard dissertation on military leadership.
He agreed, gave her a business card and she made multiple visits to Afghanistan to interview him – before romance finally flourished.
Turning to their relationship, Paula Broadwell said in the interview: “Our rapport increased and he decided to make it more of an official relationship, treating me like a biographer.
“I was able to look through correspondence he exchange with his mentors over three decades as a young captain and major and I was able to trace how he was thinking, the evolution of his thought about counterinsurgency, about how forces train and equip and fight and on leadership.
“I was particularly interested in leadership.”
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The resignation of David Petraeus, sparked by the revelation that the former general was having an affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, is the biggest sex scandal to hit Washington since Bill Clinton was revealed to have had “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky.
And the parallels between the two events are growing stronger as it has been revealed that both mistress Paula Broadwell and whistleblower Jill Kelley who exposed them have hired legal advisers who previously worked with Monica Lewinsky.
Jill Kelley, the Florida housewife who was dragged in to the scandal when she started receiving abusive emails from an anonymous source, has hired Monica Lewinsky’s crisis manager to help her deal with the publicity she is facing after the resignation of the former CIA director.
And Paula Broadwell, who carried out an affair with David Petraeus over several months after writing his biography, is being represented by an attorney from the firm which once represented Monica Lewinsky.
Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley both hire Monica Lewinsky’s aides to help deal with David Petraeus scandal
Jill Kelley has hired Abbe Lowell, the attorney who defended John Edwards earlier this year, and Judy Smith, the crisis manager who represented Monica Lewinsky after her trysts with President Bill Clinton.
Paula Broadwell’s lawyer is the Washington-based Robert F. Muse, according to ABC News, a partner at Stein, Mitchell, Muse & Cipollone, which specializes in white-collar crime.
Another of the firm’s partners is Jacob A. Stein, who was counsel to Monica Lewinsky during Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings in 1998.
Jill Kelley, Florida socialite at the centre of the David Petraeus sex scandal, has spoken for the first time and said she is an “innocent victim”.
Jill Kelley said: “I’ve done nothing wrong. I am the victim here. But it still feels awful.”
She has been called “the other woman” in the affair leading to speculation she was romantically involved with the former CIA chief.
Jill Kelley tipped off FBI agents about the affair when she handed over a series of anonymous emails sent by Paula Broadwell warning her to stay away from David Petraeus in the summer.
The 37-year-old spoke with her brother, a lawyer, as her name first became linked to the resignation of David Petraeus.
David Khawan told the Washington Post his sister telephoned him on Sunday and told him to switch on the TV because her name was all over news broadcasts.
He said his sister told him she was totally innocent and was not the “other woman” in David Petraeus’s life.
David Khawan is quoted as saying his sister said: “I’ve done nothing wrong. I am the victim here. But it still feels awful.”
Friends of Jill Kelley, a vivacious Lebanese-born mother of three known for her love of expensive designer dresses, said that she is devoted to her family and scoffed at suggestions that she was romantically involved with David Petraeus.
“This other woman obviously read all the signs wrong,” said a friend who knows Jill Kelley from their children’s private school.
“Jill is very attractive and can be touchy-feely. That’s just the way she is and there is nothing else.”
Jill Kelley, Florida socialite at the centre of the David Petraeus sex scandal, has spoken for the first time and said she is an innocent victim
Jill Kelley, a well known figure on the social scene in her hometown of Tampa, Florida, has hired a crisis management firm and top lawyer since being linked to the scandal.
This has led to speculation that further damaging details could be revealed in the fall out from David Petraeus’s resignation.
Sources have revealed that the emails she received from Paula Broadwell were “kind of cat-fight stuff”.
Jill Kelley went to the FBI with the emails – and triggered the investigation that led to the downfall of David Petraeus and his shock resignation as CIA chief.
The source told The Daily Beast the emails were: “More like, <<Who do you think you are? … You parade around the base … You need to take it down a notch.>>”
The Wall Street Journal reported that in one of the emails Paula Broadwell asked Jill Kelley if her husband was aware of her actions.
Another accused Jill Kelley of touching David Petraeus provocatively under a table.
The source also said Jill Kelley would often accompany David Petraeus’s wife Holly on shopping trips to the International Mall in Tampa.
Jill Kelley, whose husband is a top cancer surgeon, has dodged questions from the media.
Before leaving her home she called police to the $1.3 million mansion to ask media to respect her privacy.
Jill Kelley left the home in a silver Mercedes with the registration plate “Honorary Consul” – a nod to her work as an unpaid liaison officer for the military headquarters at MacDill Airforce Base.
It was during David Petraeus’s two years in Tampa at the CENTCOM headquarters that he became friends with Jill Kelley and her husband Scott.
The friendship continued after the general left Tampa with the Kelley’s visiting the Petraeus’s home in Washington DC.
Dr. Scott Broadwell’s romantic plans he had organized to celebrate his wife Paula’s 40th birthday were abruptly shattered on Friday by the revelation that she had been having a relationship with general David Petraeus.
Paula and Scott Broadwell were enjoying a two-day break at the Middleton Inn in Little Washington, Virginia when news of the scandal broke, leading to David Petraeus stepping down as CIA director.
Sources told the Washingtonian.com that the couple had enjoyed “strenuous” bike rides, champagne and cozy dinners since arriving at the luxury inn on Thursday evening.
The Broadwells took the Ascot Room at the Manor House which is available for $295 – $475 a night. It boasts a working fireplace, four-poster bed and private marble bath.
According to sources, Dr. Scott Broadwell, a radiologist, had arranged for Champagne and a bouquet of roses for his wife’s milestone birthday.
There is plenty to do in the idyllic Blue Ridge Mountain region. Along with breathtaking scenery, perfect for hiking and bike rides, the town of Little Washington – just 70 miles from D.C. – boasts fine dining. wineries and artisan boutiques.
Scott and Paula Broadwell had enjoyed strenuous bike rides, champagne and cozy dinners since arriving at Middleton Inn in Little Washington on Thursday evening
The couple reportedly joined other guests at the Inn for breakfast – but by the time they returned from a romantic dinner on Friday evening, they were described to the magazine as “not being in very good moods”.
Scott and Paula Broadwell left abruptly on Saturday morning and were allegedly on their way to D.C. A party had also been planned for Paula Broadwell’s birthday on Saturday night – but it was cancelled.
The Broadwells have two young sons and live in suburban Charlotte, North Carolina. The family’s upmarket home has been empty since the weekend with two silver cars parked in the brick garage.
Paula Broadwell moved to Charlotte, more than three years ago with her doctor husband and their two young sons.
FBI agents are searching the Charlotte, North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell, whose affair with retired general David Petraeus led to his resignation as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Agents reportedly arrived at Paula Broadwell’s home at about 10 p.m. on Monday carrying a load of boxes. Agents appeared to be rummaging through every room of the house, taking pictures and filling boxes with various items from inside, according to reporters on the scene.
The FBI has declined to comment on the specific reason for the agents’ late-night search of Paula Broadwell’s home, which was still underway after midnight.
The search is likely related to an ongoing criminal investigation into harassing emails sent from email accounts linked to Paula Broadwell, a 40-year-old mother of two.
FBI agents are searching the Charlotte home of Paula Broadwell, whose affair with retired general David Petraeus led to his resignation as CIA director
Paula Broadwell sent the emails to 37-year-old Jill Kelley of Tampa, Florida, in which she cryptically warned her to stay away from David Petraeus.
Paula Broadwell, who wrote a biography on David Petraeus, was involved in an affair with the four-star general at the time and she believed that Jill Kelley was a potential love rival.
Jill Kelley, a housewife who organizes social events for military personnel, has said that she and David Petraeus were only acquaintances.
The FBI conducted an investigation into the emails and were shocked to learn how much access that Paula Broadwell appeared to have to David Petraeus, officials said. The federal agency eventually determined that no national security secrets had been breached by the relationship, however they did find classified materials on Paula Broadwell’s computer.
Paula Broadwell spent hours interviewing Holly Petraeus, former CIA Director’s wife, about the couple’s relationship while she was secretly carrying on an illicit affair with David Petraeus.
Paula Broadwell, 40, called Holly Petraeus “a wonderful source of information” for her research on the once esteemed army general, who resigned from the CIA Friday after admitting that he engaged in an affair with his biographer.
In her book, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, Paula Broadwell recounted details from dozens of hours of interviews between Holly and David Petraeus in a description of how the couple met and fell in love. She described the relationship as virtually unbreakable, while at the same time, she was carrying on an illicit affair with David behind Holly’s back.
Holly Petraeus is “furious” as details of Paula Broadwell’s relationship continue to emerge, according to a former spokesman for David Petraeus.
Retired U.S. Army Col. Steve Boylan described the Petraeus family’s outrage: “His children may be grown up, but he still has to regain their trust.”
“Holly is disappointed, upset and furious… but they have been married for 37 years and I hope they can get through this.”
Steve Boylan said that David Petraeus is still living at home with his wife despite revelations of his eight-month affair with his biographer.
He also revealed that David Petraeus has contacted his former mistress – his biographer and a married mother of two, Paula Broadwell – over recent weeks, despite ending the affair four months ago.
The couple had mutually agreed to stop their illicit affair, knowing what they were doing was “wrong”. But “David and Paula were still in contact about Paula’s dissertation”.
When asked if their marriage could survive, he added: “I hope so, they are a strong couple, but every day is a challenge. All David is focused on now is saving his family.”
Col. Steve Boylan said that Holly Petraeus had been told of the affair on Thursday before he met with President Barack Obama to offer his resignation.
“She is very classy, very unassuming,” he said.
“She has established herself and her own career in her own manner.
“She’s a very lovely lady, endearing. But she is also someone I would not want to get angry at me.
“It’s those reserved, quiet types you have to look out for. But she’s a joy to be around, a very gracious and caring individual.”
Paula Broadwell spent hours interviewing Holly Petraeus about the couple’s relationship while she was secretly carrying on an illicit affair with David Petraeus
In Paula Broadwell’s book, she described Holly Petraeus as a witty head-turner.
“In the fall of 1973, Holly Knowlton was a senior at Dickinson College, a beautiful, smart and witty young woman,” Paula Broadwell wrote.
At the time, David Petraeus was attending West Point.
“On a visit to West Point one football weekend, a friend of the family had hoped to fix her up with a certain cadet to take her to the game,” Paula Broadwell wrote.
“But when he was otherwise engaged, a call was placed to the cadet brigade headquarters to find a replacement…David Petraeus. Not knowing who his blind date was, he agreed to take on this potentially sensitive mission.”
David Petraeus fell fast for Holly Knowlton, but not just for her looks and wit, according to Paula Broadwell.
The army cadet found Holly Petraeus’ high-profile military family – her father was the superintendent at West Point – “intoxicating”, Paula Broadwell wrote.
“Soon, the two would find themselves commuting to each other’s colleges whenever time allowed, sometimes braving fierce New York snowstorms to spend time together,” according to Paula Broadwell.
“Petraeus would sneak into the superintendent’s side door to visit Holly when she made the trip back to West Point.”
David Petraeus told friends that his affair with Paula Broadwell began around the time that he was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the summer of 2011 and that he cut off the relationship four months ago.
The affair was revealed by an FBI investigation into threatening emails that Paula Broadwell had anonymously sent to Jill Kelley, whom she believed to be a rival for David Petraeus’s attention.
The FBI traced the emails to Paula Broadwell and uncovered the affair, which eventually led to David Petraeus’s decision last week to resign and admit to the infidelity publicly.
In advertising her book, Paula Broadwell said she has a fierce competitive streak, which is probably what led her to email another woman that she considered her rival.
On an official Web site for her book, which has since been removed, Paula Broadwell explains: “I was driven when I was younger. Driven at West Point where is much more competitive in that women were competing with men on many levels, and I was driven in the military and at Harvard, both competitive environments.”
Just as her affair with David Petraeus was budding, Paula Broadwell went on a book tour to promote her biography of Petraeus and she heaped praise on Holly.
“As a working mother and wife, my husband works really works hard, it’s hard to find balance, you know, it’s pretty clear and Holly’s pretty clear that she’s supported him and yet they have this wonderful marriage and very established children,” Paula Broadwell said in February.
Paula Broadwell also added that she likes “teasing” the general for being “monodirectional”.
“He doesn’t like to do anything besides run and do P.T. and read and work, you know, and go out to dinner with Holly,” Paula Broadwell said.
“I don’t know if that’s a weakness, but I feel like he could have more balance and learn to relax.”
An FBI agent was pulled off the investigation into David Petraeus’s illicit contact with Paula Broadwell when he reportedly became obsessed with Jill Kelley, the other woman involved in the probe, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The FBI found that the agent had sent shirtless photos of himself to Jill Kelley, the Tampa woman who reportedly received a half dozen emails from Paula Broadwell that warned her to stay away from David Petraeus. The emails were sent from anonymous accounts.
That same agent was a friend of Jill Kelley’s and he had started the FBI investigation into the emails – which eventually led to David Petraeus’s downfall – after Kelley came to him for help upon receiving the anonymous threats.
The FBI declined to identify the agent, who is now under an internal investigation by the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
After Jill Kelley, a married mother of three, told the agent about the emails, he referred the matter to a cyber crimes unit.
Shortly thereafter, the agent was barred from the case over concerns that he “might have grown obsessed with the matter”, the Wall Street Journal reports.
An FBI agent was pulled off the investigation into David Petraeus’s illicit contact with Paula Broadwell when he reportedly became obsessed with Jill Kelley
Even after he was prohibited from involvement in the case, the agent decided to contact a member of Congress, Republican David Reichert, about the matter.
He complained that senior FBI officials were going to “sweep the matter under the rug”, the FBI learned.
Meanwhile, investigators had traced the harassing emails back to accounts used by Paula Broadwell, a 40-year-old married mother of two from Charlotte, North Carolina. In one of the emails, Paula Broadwell accused Jill Kelley of touching “him” underneath a table and another email asked if Kelley’s husband was aware of her actions, according to the newspaper.
Jill Kelley, 37, is a volunteer who organizes social events for military families in the Tampa area. She often hosts the events at her million-dollar Bayshore Boulevard home, which is located only a couple miles from MacDill Air Force base, where David Petraeus was leader of the U.S. Central Command.
“The Kelley mansion became the place to be seen for coalition officers,” according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Jill Kelley’s husband, Dr. Scott Kelley, is a highly sought-after surgeon who specializes in a rare type of minimally invasive surgery to cure cancer of the esophagus.
Since the Kelleys have been in Tampa, one or both have been subjects of lawsuits nine times – including an $11,000 judgment against them that originated in Pennsylvania, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The emails which Paula Broadwell sent to supposed love rival Jill Kelley and which led to her affair with David Petraeus being exposed were “kind of cat-fight stuff”, it was claimed last night.
Paula Broadwell was apparently aggressive towards Jill Kelley, saying: “Who do you think you are?”
She also accused socialite Jill Kelley, a Petraeus family friend, of “parad[ing] around the base”, adding: “You need to take it down a notch.”
The revelation comes as a team of FBI agents has descended on paula Broadwell’s home and started removing boxes of household items.
It is unclear what investigators are doing at the house in Charlotte, North Carolina, and they have refused to comment on their latest probe into the writer.
Further questions about the FBI’s role in the scandal, which saw David Petraeus resign from the CIA last Friday, have been raised by the revelation of the notorious emails’ contents by the Daily Beast.
A source told the website the emails did not contain threats or references to the former general, but were instead vague expressions of hostility, taking aim at Jill Kelley’s role as a “social liaison” at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
When Jill Kelley first reported the messages to a friend who works for the FBI, she did not regard them as a criminal matter, instead simply saying: “I don’t know who this person is and I don’t want to keep getting them.”
The emails which Paula Broadwell sent to supposed love rival Jill Kelley were kind of cat-fight stuff
And when investigators looked at the messages, many were unimpressed, according to the Beast‘s source – many simply concluded, “There’s no threat there.”
However, Jill Kelley’s friendship with an FBI agent apparently meant the bureau took the emails more seriously than they otherwise might have – and helped them uncover the months-long relationship between Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus.
They launched a wide-ranging investigation, interviewing both the CIA director and his former lover, but eventually concluding that no crime or national security breach had been committed.
David Petraeus offered his resignation on Thursday afternoon, and officially stepped down the next day.
It became clear within hours that Paula Broadwell, who met the general in Iraq when she was researching a dissertation which would eventually become a full-length biography, was the woman with whom he had cheated on Holly, his wife of 37 years.
And on Monday evening it appeared that the FBI had reopened their investigation, as at least six agents visited her home – where she is not currently staying – and removed several boxes.
General John R. Allen, a second top military official, was dragged in to the David Petraeus sex scandal early this morning after being accused of sending thousands of “inappropriate” emails to socialite Jill Kelley, who was responsible for exposing the former CIA director’s extra-marital affair.
General John R. Allen, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, is under investigation by the FBI after the agency discovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communication between him and 37-year-old housewife Jill Kelley.
Jill Kelley entered the public eye when she was the target of threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, which the FBI used to uncover the affair between Broadwell and David Petraeus, leading to the former general’s resignation from the CIA.
John Allen, who succeeded David Petraeus in Afghanistan, was due to take over as NATO’s top commander, but his appointment has been suspended while his relationship with Jill Kelley is investigated.
Barack Obama had nominated John Allen to take over as chief of the military’s European Command and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, but that nomination is now on hold as the Pentagon investigates Allen’s relationship with Kelley, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters.
He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013 if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.
The FBI notified the Pentagon of its investigation into John Allen’s communications with Jill Kelley on Sunday evening, an unnamed senior defence official said. Leon Panetta said he immediately notified the White House and top leaders in Congress of the investigation.
Leon Panetta said John Allen would remain as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan for now, “while the matter is under investigation and before the facts are determined”.
Pentagon officials have declined to comment on the nature of the relationship between Jill Kelley and John Allen, who is married, except to say that it was “potentially inappropriate”. Officials have not said whether any national security secrets were breached.
Adultery is classified as a crime in the military.
Jill Kelley has been in the news this week after it emerged that she was the target of harassing emails from Paula Broadwell, a 40-year-old mother of two from Charlotte, North Carolina who was engaged in an affair with David Petraeus.
Paula Broadwell sent Jill Kelley a half dozen emails from anonymous accounts earlier this year warning her to stay away from Petraeus. Paula Broadwell perceived Jill Kelley as a threat to her relationship with David Petraeus, which began in the summer of 2011 and ended the following summer.
Jill Kelley notified a friend of hers who worked for the FBI of the emails, and he referred the case to a cyber crimes unit.
That agent was later banned from the FBI’s investigation into the source of the emails when officials discovered that he was sending shirtless photographs to Jill Kelley and seemed to become “obsessed” with the case, the Wall Street Journal reported.
General John R. Allen was dragged into the David Petraeus sex scandal early this morning after being accused of sending thousands of inappropriate emails to Jill Kelley
Jill Kelley is a volunteer who organizes social events for military families in the Tampa area. She often hosts the events at her million-dollar Bayshore Boulevard home, which is located only a couple miles from MacDill Air Force base, where Allen served from July 2008 to June 2011.
John R. Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded David Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.
A senior official told the Associated Press that 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Jill 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 David Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.
“General Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said John Allen currently is in Washington.
The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Leon Panetta’s decision to allow John Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.
John Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.
Leon Panetta said Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that John Allen’s nomination to the NATO post should be put on hold.
John Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Leon Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.
Leon Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Barack Obama’s nomination of General Joseph Dunford to succeed John Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Joseph Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.
The White House faces growing demands from Capitol Hill for answers about what the FBI and President Barack Obama knew about the David Petraeus scandal and why the president was not informed about the months-long investigation until after his re-election.
The fact that David Petraeus, who was scheduled to give testimony on Thursday about CIA intelligence surrounding the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Libya, but now that appearance has been delayed because of his resignation on Friday.
As more information is released, it is clear that Representative Eric Cantor- one of the country’s most powerful Republicans- was notified of the investigation involving David Petraeus on October 27, more than a week before the election.
Federal investigators from the FBI and the Justice Department- including Barack Obama-appointee Attorney General Eric Holder- had been aware of the ensuing scandal for months
In addition to their displeasure at being left in the dark until just hours before David Petraeus made his very public announcement on Friday, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are concerned that the timeline of the various notifications was purposefully slowed down to allow for some degree of a cover-up over Petraeus’ scheduled testimony.
The timing of the Petraeus resignation and this week’s Benghazi hearings means the two issues have, for now, become inextricably linked.
As CIA director, David Petraeus is understood to have interviewed the CIA base chief and head of the CIA response team about what happened in Benghazi when Ambassador Chris Stevens, diplomat Sean Smith and CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed.
At the same time, Congress wants to know why, if senior FBI figures knew of the affair in the late summer, President Barack Obama was not informed until last week and, additionally, why leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees learned of the resignation from the media.
According to the White House, Barack Obama was not told of the FBI investigation and David Petraeus’ affair until last Thursday, even though he meets regularly with the head of the FBI.
Some Republicans have suggested there might be a cover-up over Benghazi or that the news was held back until after the election.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, have expressed their dismay at not having been informed earlier.
General Michael Hayden, former CIA chief, said the timing of the resignation was “mysterious”.
He told Fox News: “Hanging out there is the requirement in law to keep the intelligence committees fully and currently informed about significant intelligence activity.
“It’s not surprising that Senator Feinstein and Chairman Rogers have shown a lot of pique at not being let in on this a bit earlier.”
According to the FBI, their investigation began in the spring when Jill Kelley, described as an unofficial “social liaison” to the Joint Special Operations Command in Tampa, told a friend in the FBI that she had received harassing emails from another woman.
Jill Kelley, who is Lebanese-born, and her husband Scott were friend of David Petraeus, 60, and his wife Holly. The FBI investigation established that Paul Broadwell, 40, a married mother of two, had sent the emails.
In monitoring Paula Broadwell’s emails, it was discovered that she was receiving emails of a sexual nature from a mysterious Gmail account.
It was eventually discovered that the mysterious emails were from David Petraeus, who admitted the affair.
CIA Director David Petraeus resigned on Friday November 9 citing an extramarital affair
On October 31st, however, and before anyone else on Capitol Hill or in the White House knew, the FBI friend of Jill Kelley contacted Representative Dave Reichert regarding concerns about national security and asking for a member of the Republican congressional leadership.
Dave Reichert directed the FBI man to Representative Eric Cantor, House Majority Whip, who spoke to him and then informed the FBI of the conversation.
Ronald Kessler, a Newsmax journalist, said he was informed of the affair and FBI investigation by an FBI source on October 10th. David Petraeus and Paul Broadwell were interviewed during the week of October 29th and both admitted their affair.
Paula Broadwell was interviewed again on November 2nd, at which time the FBI is said to have concluded that no charges would be brought either for cyber stalking or security breaches.
David Petraeus has told friends he did not have an affair with Jill Kelley, 37, a mother of three. In a statement issued on Sunday, Jill Kelley asked for privacy for her and her family and neither confirmed nor denied an affair.
Speaking on CBS, Senator Lindsey Graham, a personal and confidant of David Petraeus, said: “Well, if there`s no effect of the affair on national security, I think we need to move on. But at the end of the day, the one thing that has to happen, in my view, is we’ve got to get to the bottom of Benghazi.
“I hate what happened to General Petraeus for his family and the families for those involved, but we have four dead Americans in Benghazi. We have a national security failure long in the making.
“I don`t see how in the world you can find out what happened in Benghazi before, during, and after the attack if General Petraeus doesn`t testify, so from my point of view, it`s absolutely essential that he give testimony before the Congress so we can figure out Benghazi.”
He added: “I would suggest that we have a joint select committee of House and Senate members and we do this together, not have three different committee going off in three different directions, so we can get to the bottom of it like we did in Watergate and Iran Contra. I think that would be smart for the Congress to combine resources.”
Just as with Watergate, the central issue over events surrounding David Petraeus’ resignation is crystallizing into something similar to the one Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee famously asked during the Watergate hearings: “What did the President know and when did he know it.”
Neither Robert Mueller, FBI director, not Eric Holder, attorney general, has commented on when they learned of the investigation. Both the FBI and Justice Department has said no one in the White House was told of the investigation until last week.
Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor, compared what happened in Benghazi to Watergate and told Fox News it was essential David Petraeus testified. Even though he is now a private citizen, David Petraeus can be compelled to appear.
“The frustration is justified,” Rudy Giuliani said.
“And it’s in the national interest. Now we’re going to have a hearing next week, and the man who knows the facts, David Petraeus – he’s the only man who can really tell us what the CIA knew, what they did, why they did it, how they did it. He’s not going to testify.
“And this is a very convenient way to get the administration out of a very, very difficult situation. But is inevitable. This is like Watergate. This is inevitable. This is all going to come out.
“It may take a month, it may take five months, but this is all going to come out. And every single new cover-up they do just makes it much, much worse.”
Representative Peter King of New York, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC that the FBI was “derelict in its duty” when it failed to tell the White House immediately when it learned of David Petraeus’s affair.
“Once the FBI realized that it was investigating the director of the CIA or the CIA director had come within its focus or its scope, I believe at that time they had an absolute obligation to tell the president. Not to protect David Petraeus, but to protect the president.
“The fact is he is a key part of the president’s foreign policy team, maybe more than any other CIA director in recent times.
“He was going around the world negotiating various understandings and agreements, I’m aware of that.
“And to have someone out there in such a sensitive position who the FBI thought perhaps could have been compromised or was under the scope of an FBI investigation who may or may not have been having an affair at the time, that to me had to have been brought to the president or certainly to the National Security Council. If not, the FBI was derelict in its duty.”
He added: “This is a crisis, I believe, of major proportions. This is not the usual political thing. We’re not talking about the secretary of commerce or some under secretary somewhere.”
Questions have emerged over whether Paula Broadwell, David Petraeus’ mistress, leaked details of the CIA’s investigation into the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Suspicions over how much Paula Broadwell knew about the probe come as the CIA’s former boss stepped down on Friday over the alleged affair, days before he was to testify in the investigation.
Officials say they expect he will still testify over the incident, which left four Americans dead on September 11 this year, yet it will be delayed. The new concern comes over what, if any, confidential information he shared with his biographer and alleged mistress.
Paula Broadwell, a married army veteran who met David Petraeus in 2006, was speaking at the University of Denver on October 26 when she was asked about the attack.
“Now I don’t know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually – had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back,” she said, according to the Daily Beast.
“So that’s still being vetted.”
In response, the CIA denied that claim on Sunday when the tape of Paula Broadwell’s talk surfaced, saying that it was not true. The agency confirmed that since 2009 they have not had the authority to detain prisoners.
“Any suggestion that the Agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless,” they told the site.
The only other news station to report that claim at the time that Paula Broadwell made her speech to the University of Denver was Fox News, which she references moments before making the claim about the alleged prisoners.
According to the clearest timeline of Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus’ alleged affair, which is said to have started in 2011 and ended in “early summer” of this year, they would have been broken up for at least a few months by the time of this conference.
Paula Broadwell leaked secret details of Benghazi attack while speaking at the University of Denver on October 26
She went on to defend both the government’s controversial reaction to the crisis and the CIA’s lack of disclosure.
“The challenging thing for General Petraeus is that in his new position he is not allowed to communicate with the press. So he’s known all of this, they had correspondence with the CIA station chief in Libya. Within 24 hours they kind of knew what was happening,” she said.
“If you remember at the time, the Muslim video, the Mohammed video that came out, the demonstrations that were going on in Cairo- there were demonstrations in 22 other countries at the time, tens of thousands of people and our government was very concerned that this was going to become a nightmare for us.
“So you can understand if you put yourself in his shoes, or Secretary Clinton’s shoes, or the President’s shoes, that we thought it was tied somehow to the demonstrations in Cairo. It’s true that we have signal intelligence that shows the militia members in Libya were watching the demonstrations in Cairo and that did galvanize their efforts.
“As a former intel officer, it’s frustrating to me because it reveals our sources and methods. I don’t think the public needs to know all of that.”
Paula Broadwell has come under intense scrutiny ever since David Petraeus, the four star general credited with the surge in Afghanistan, submitted his resignation citing an extramarital affair.
During the lengthy discussion, Paula Broadwell’s high aspirations are clear as she spoke repeatedly about how she has had the life-long goal of becoming the National Security Adviser. When asked if she had the chance to talk to any previous NSA’s, she said that she had not but she considers “Maddie” and “Condi” to be great role models, referring to Madeline Albright and Condoleezza Rice by their nicknames.
Paula Broadwell’s high achieving personality and her unusually comfortable nature around David Petraeus raised concerns among Petraeus’ close advisers in the year leading up to the revelation of the affair.
To those outside the general’s tight-knit circle, however, news of the affair came as a big surprise when it was announced on Friday.
David Petraeus was expected to make headlines when he was made to testify in front of Congress about what and when the CIA knew regarding the timeline of events in Libya when a group of terrorists stormed the consulate killing ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
The affair was discovered by the FBI when they responded Jill Kelley, a Florida woman and friend of David Petraeus who allegedly received email threats from Paula Broadwell.
Both Jill Kelley and Paula Broadwell are married with children, but that didn’t stop Broadwell from becoming defensive of David Petraeus.
Paula Broadwell supposedly told Jill Kelley to “stay away from my man”. Though there were multiple threatening emails, none of them were considered criminal so the FBI has not charged the army reservist.
News of the affair “was like a lightning bolt”, said Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee.
David Petraeus was scheduled to testify in front of Congress on Thursday, but that has since been pushed back in light of his resignation.
Now his replacement, CIA deputy director Michael Morell, will appear instead of David Petraeus.
Dianne Feinstein went on to say that just because David Petraeus no longer works at the CIA, that does prohibit Congress from compelling him to testify about Benghazi at a later date.
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Today it has emerged that former CIA chief David Petraeus charmed another female journalist, Linda Robinson, who was writing a book on him so successfully that she once praised him for “always poking, prodding, demanding”.
Linda Robinson was so impressed with the future head of the CIA that she called him a “whirling dervish” who had “tremendous energy”.
In interviews Linda Robinson also spoke of his “informality” and how he was so media savvy that he was “very proactive about his public relations”.
Linda Robinson wrote her take on David Petraeus and his war record in 2008 called Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq.
After the book came out she was rewarded with a post alongside David Petraeus at U.S. Central Command where she is thought to have provided strategic analysis for the Afghanistan-Pakistan Centre.
There is no suggestion at all that Linda Robinson and David Petraeus had an affair, but the similarities between her and Paula Broadwell – the brunette biographer who allegedly had an affair with Petraeus over the past year- are clear and her comments throw a spotlight on how Petraeus charmed those around him with almost cult-like qualities.
They spent time together under similar circumstances to the way he got to know mistress Paula Broadwell when she later wrote her biography of him.
Paula Broadwell spoke repeatedly at lectures about her book about how willing David Petraeus was to mentor young scholar-soldiers like herself, and one of his classic “moves” was to take them out for a jog to see how fit they were.
“Our first interview in person was on a run. And I had proposed this because I knew it was a rite of passage for many of his former aids, to kind of get in the inner circle you had to be a runner,” Paula Broadwell said at a lecture in October.
Linda Robinson, 58, is a respected former U.S. News and World Report correspondent who specializes in security and the military.
She is currently an adjunct senior fellow on foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and is a Nieman fellow at Harvard University.
Linda Robinson has also been a senior editor at the respected Foreign Affairs magazine and her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and a string of policy journals.
Over 18 months in 2007 and 2008 she conducted “extensive” interviews with David Petraeus to complete Tell Me How This Ends, so named after what Petraeus remarked when the war in Iraq turned into an insurgency.
At the time he was head of the Multi-National Force in Iraq and was credited for persuading former President George W. Bush to back the troop “surge”.
Linda Robinson writes that David Petraeus changed the military for the better from a “top-down” organization to a “bottom-up” approach.
Linda Robinson was so impressed with David Petraeus that she called him a whirling dervish who had tremendous energy
In a series of interviews she also heaped praise on the man himself, including one in 2008 with NPR in which she expressed her affection for him.
Linda Robinson said: “And I think that’s probably sums up what he did do, a man with tremendous energy.
“So, he also communicated those ideas in the variety of ways in the daily briefings, which I sat in on and he was very active and contrasted with some of the previous generals.
“He was always poking, prodding, demanding. I mean he’s just ceaseless, kind of a whirling dervish.
“He goes out, runs with his battalion commanders, gets information from them, tells them what he thinks they need to be doing and just deals with hundreds and hundreds of emails a day and just you know, he’s really trying to be everywhere at once.”
In the book itself Linda Robinson notes David Petraeus’ “intellectual rigor” and how it meant he would “mount a sustained effort to understand the problem”.
In an interview with C-Span in 2008, Linda Robinson also told how she endured 125 F heat in Baghdad that left her “drenched and exhausted” in order to see David Petraeus and interview him.
She said: “I got to know him and watched him over this last 18 months, what really struck me was his informality and his approachability.”
Linda Robinson also defended David Petraeus’ love of the limelight and claimed that it was merely because he was “very proactive about his public relations”.
She said: “You know, he’s always willing to go out and talk. And a lot of, I would call them sort of <<old school Army>> officers are less comfortable and less willing to be proactive on that front.
“And you hear people who say, <<oh, he’s looking for attention>>, you know, sort of characterizing Petraeus as the attention-seeking general.
“But it’s really, for him, a way of trying to shape what he calls the <<information environment>>.
“He certainly does mind his career and his public profile. But I think there’s a real substantive purpose to why he does what he does.
“And there are, I think, people in the Army who have had some heartburn over that.”
Praise was high for Tell Me How This Ends, with the New York Times calling it “a first-rate piece of work, probing and conscientious”.
Its review says: “Robinson leaves the reader feeling that, however the war turns out, our country owes David Petraeus a debt of gratitude.”
According to the review, Linda Robinson brings an insider’s perspective to the subject whilst John Nagi in Army Magazine said it was “likely to remain the best analysis of General Petraeus’ role in the decisive years of the war in Iraq short of the general’s own memoirs”.
Since the revelations about David Petraeus emerged, critics have begun asking how questions about his cozy relationship with reporters.
Writing on Buzzfeed, Michael Hastings said that David Petraeus had been brilliant at “making the public think he was a man of great integrity and honor”.
He wrote: “How did Petraeus get away with all this for so long?
“Well, his first affair – and one that matters so much more than the fact that he was sleeping with a female or two – was with the media.”
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