Former CIA director David Petraeus
By Jackie Kucinich and Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - Former CIA director David Petraeus will likely be
called to testify during upcoming congressional hearings into the deadly
Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, despite his abrupt
resignation last week over an affair with his biographer, the chairwoman
of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday.
Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-Calif., expressing deep concern about the need to hear from
Petraeus, also threatened to subpoena records detailing a trip that
the former CIA director made to Libya in the weeks before his
resignation. Feinstein said congressional leaders have been blocked from
reviewing the report. House and Senate committees open a series of
hearings into the Benghazi matter this week.
"That's
unacceptable,'' she said in an interview on MSNBC. "We are entitled to
this trip report, and if we have to go to the floor of the Senate on a
subpoena we will do just that ... It may have some very relevant
information to what happened in Benghazi."
Meanwhile, details
about the FBI investigation that revealed Petraeus' affair with Paula
Broadwell - and ultimately prompted his resignation - continued to be
disclosed Monday.
Among them:
- In addition to
personal e-mail accounts, Broadwell and Petraeus took pains to disguise
some of their personal communications, sometimes leaving messages for
each other in joint electronic accounts that only they could access, a
federal law enforcement official told USA TODAY. The official has been
briefed on the matter, but is not authorized to speak publicly.
- ·
Broadwell also allegedly used electronic accounts, other than
her personal e-mail accounts, to send a series of harassing messages to a
Petraeus family friend, the official said. That friend, identified as
Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa, later reported the communications to the FBI,
launching the broader inquiry that revealed the Petraeus-Broadwell
relationship and concerns about whether classified information held by
the then-CIA director might be at risk. No sensitive information was
found to be compromised, Feinstein said.
- Kelley, an unpaid
social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, shared her initial
concerns about the messages with an acquaintance at the FBI, the federal
law enforcement official said. That agent then passed the information
to the bureau's cybercrime investigators who began the inquiry.
Apparently concerned that the investigation was not being handled
properly, the same agent expressed his concerns in late October to Rep.
Dave Reichert, R-Wash. Reichert then referred the agent to House
Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., who spoke to the agent and then
instructed his staff to alert FBI Director Robert Mueller. The federal
law enforcement official said that Mueller and Attorney General Eric
Holder had been informed of the investigation in the summer.
Petraeus and Broadwell have not been available for comment. Kelley
and her husband, Scott, issued a statement Sunday through a spokeswoman,
saying only: "We and our family have been friends with Gen. Petraeus
and his family for over five years. We respect his and his family's
privacy and want the same for us and our three children.''
In
addition to the pending Benghazi investigation, Feinstein said
congressional leaders would also question FBI official about why they
weren't briefed on inquiry that triggered Petraeus' resignation.
Feinstein
said it was a "mistake" to keep congressional leaders in the dark
during the FBI's e-mail probe, comparing the unfolding scandal to
"peeling an onion."
"Every day another peel comes off and you see a
whole new dimension to this," she said. "So, my concern has actually
escalated over the last few days."
She called the decision of the FBI whistle-blower to inform House members of the investigation "deeply disturbing."
The
FBI did not brief the White House or congressional intelligence
committees after learning this summer of Petraeus' romantic involvement
with his biographer because there was no evidence that classified
material had been compromised, the federal law enforcement official
said.
The official said the inquiry-which first focused on
Broadwell's alleged harassing e-mails- revealed no national security
threats and was handled internally like other criminal investigations,
despite its link to the CIA director.
"It was an ongoing criminal
investigation,'' the official said. "There are intelligence issues that,
if they become matters of national security, they are shared. You don't
brief (administration and congressional officials) if there only concerns about an intelligence issue.''
Contributing: Donna Leinwand