Salon.com > Jill Kelley

Dem rep. calls for new probe of Jill Kelley, Gen. Allen emails

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 15:52:00 +0000

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., has called for a renewed investigation into potentially inappropriate emails exchanged between socialite Jill Kelley and Gen. John Allen.

"The fact that they didn't even pursue accessing the private e-mails is very disturbing to me," Speier said of the Pentagon's inspector general report on the matter, in an interview with USA Today. "Because it would suggest that it was an incomplete investigation at the very least. At the worst: [they were] intentionally not pursuing an investigation into whether or not there was an inappropriate relationship, secrecy, national-security breaches. Classified information."

The emails in question were the thousands of exchanges between Gen. Allen and Kelley. Kelley was pulled into the spotlight when she complained to the FBI about harassing emails, eventually revealed to have been sent by David Petraeus' biographer Paula Broadwell, which eventually led to revelations that Petraeus and Broadwell were having an affair.

From USA Today:

Jill Kelley sues FBI, Pentagon over alleged leaks

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:21:00 +0000

Jill Kelley and her husband, Scott, have sued the Pentagon and the FBI over alleged leaks to the press connecting them with David Petraeus' affair with Paula Broadwell, alleging that the leaks subjected Jill Kelley to "ridicule, moral opprobrium, scorn and derision."

The 65-page lawsuit claims that after Kelley filed a complaint about threatening emails she had received -- eventually revealed to have been sent by Broadwell, and eventually leading to revelations about Broadwell's affair with Petraeus -- the FBI and Defense Department violated the Kelleys' privacy rights, leaked false and defamatory information, and generally engaged in "damaging leaks, cavalier sexual innuendo, old-fashioned “blame the victim” discrimination, and other privacy violations and slander of the Kelleys by government officials [that] were not authorized conduct within the scope of those officials’ employment."

"If Defendants can wreak such emotional, reputational, and financial havoc on a couple as educated, intelligent, successful, and public-spirited as the Kelleys," the lawsuit continues, "they could certainly do so to anyone. Accordingly, this suit seeks not only to vindicate Plaintiffs’ legal rights, help restore their reputations, champion the truth, and otherwise attempt to make them whole, but also to deter Defendants from such egregious violations of privacy in the future."

The complaint asks for a formal apology and unspecified damages.

Petraeus tells friend: “I screwed up royally”

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:39:00 +0000

Retired Brig. Gen. James Shelton leaked a handwritten letter from David Petraeus, his old Army friend, in which Petraeus takes responsibility for his affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell: “I paid the price (appropriately) and I sought to do the right thing at the end of the day,” Petraeus wrote.

“I screwed up royally,” Petraeus writes in the note to Shelton, sent November 20. He also notes that he and his wife are trying to work through the affair: “Team Petraeus will survive though [I] have obviously created enormous difficulty for us,” Petraeus wrote. “Holly is, however, once again demonstrating how incredibly fortunate I was to marry her.”

Shelton leaked the note to the New York Post, ABC News and the Daily Mail.

Must-see morning clip

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:44:00 +0000

Comedian Stephen Colbert says the David Petraeus-Jill Kelley-Paula Broadwell "love pentagon" is "like a steamy episode of 'General's Hospital.'" Naturally, he invites Susan Lucci from daytime soap opera "All My Children" to reveal some new dramatic developments in the scandal.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Dumb tweet of the day: David Petraeus, “welfare bum”

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:26:00 +0000

[embedtweet id="269196397876756481"]

The real Petraeus scandal

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:39:00 +0000

It's hard to stay focused on what really matters in the unfolding David Petraeus story, but there's one issue that every juicy new tidbit only underscores: the way a strange complaint to a lone FBI agent led to an electronic dragnet that toppled the CIA director and may yet bring down the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen.

I'll admit to rubbernecking at each crazy new detail that emerges – the unnamed FBI agent who trigged the Petraeus probe had earlier sent shirtless photos of himself to Jill Kelley, the woman who asked for his help with anonymous harassing emails? Petraeus and Allen intervened in a child custody case on behalf of Kelley's sister? Kelley, who is of Lebanese Catholic descent, is "a self-appointed go between" with Lebanese and other Mideastern officials? She once cooked alligator on the Food Network?

Petraeus scandal widens, and the slut-shaming begins

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Dear American Media, can we not write headlines like this:

This Reuters article does something pretty annoying in my view. It tries to piecemeal a triangle between Paula Broadwell, Jill Kelley and Holly Petraeus, struggling to cobble a narrative arc ultimately leading us down the path to absolve David Petraeus as if Guido Anselmi in Felini’s 8 1/2.

Jill Kelley, alligator chef

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:45:00 +0000

When Jill Kelley appeared with her twin sister Natalie Khawam on The Food Network show "Food Fight," a St. Petersburg Times critic called it the contestant's "22 minutes of fame." How wrong he was.

As of this week, Kelley's name is splashed over tabloids as "the other woman" in the Petraeus scandal; she the Florida socialite who received threatening emails from the former CIA chief's alleged mistress. And while the scandal-hungry media asks "Who is Jill Kelley?" her 2003 appearance on a Tampa-based cooking show adds a little color.

The St. Petersburg Times columnist depicts Kelley and her sister as glamorous and playful during their appearance, when they had to cook alligator:

A timeline of David Petraeus’ affair

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:28:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — The extramarital affair that brought down David Petraeus' celebrated career last week raised many questions. Among them: when exactly the affair began, how the FBI stumbled upon the information and who was told about it. Here's a timeline of events, according to officials involved in the investigation:

Spring 2006 — Paula Broadwell meets Petraeus at Harvard University, where she is a graduate student. Petraeus is a lieutenant general working on a manual about counterinsurgency and is invited to give a speech about his experiences in Iraq.

January 2007 — The Senate confirms Petraeus as the commanding general for U.S. troops in Iraq.

2008 — Broadwell initiates a case study of Petraeus' leadership. On a visit to Washington, Petraeus invites Broadwell to join him and his team for a run along the Potomac River.

October 2008 — Petraeus is named commander of U.S. Central Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Fla., where Jill Kelley and her husband attend social events alongside the area's military elite.

June 30, 2010 — The Senate confirms Petraeus as the new commander for war in Afghanistan. Over the next year, Broadwell expands her research of Petraeus into an authorized biography. She makes multiple trips to Afghanistan and is given unprecedented access to Petraeus and his commanders.

As David Petraeus turns

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 14:03:00 +0000

Update (Nov. 20, 8:36 a.m.): Paula Broadwell has hired the high-profile Washington PR firm Glover Park Group to represent her as fallout from the scandal continues. Meanwhile, Natalie Khawam, Jill Kelley's twin sister, has reportedly retained Gloria Allred, according to Katie Hinman of ABC News.

Update (Nov. 19, 10:36 a.m.): The Associated Press reports on the FBI 's uncovering of the Petraeus scandal, and how it is the "exception, not the rule" for how the agency would respond to cyberstalking cases. But because the emails involved top officials, the Kelley case was different. From the AP:

The bureau probably would have ignored Kelley's complaint had it not been for information in the e-mails — which the FBI ultimately traced to Paula Broadwell, an Army reservist and Petraeus's biographer — that indicated the sender was aware of the travel schedules of Petraeus and Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Petraeus story gets weird

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:57:00 +0000

New twists in the scandal surrounding David Petraeus' affair with his biographer involve an unnamed FBI agent and Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, who are both accused of inappropriately sending messages to Jill Kelley.

Kelley was identified as the Tampa, Fla., woman to whom Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' biographer, sent harassing emails, which sparked the FBI investigation that uncovered the affair.

But the FBI agent who initiated the probe is now under investigation himself by the Office of Professional Responsibility for reportedly becoming too personally involved in the case, the Wall Street Journal reports.

And how did he become too personally involved? He "allegedly sent shirtless photos of himself to a woman involved in the case prior to the investigation," according to the Journal. The woman was Kelley, who was a personal friend of the agent.

From the Journal:

Official: Petraeus paramour emailed woman in Florida

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 20:58:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior U.S. military official says the author who had an affair with David Petraeus sent harassing emails to a woman who was the State Department's liaison to the military's Joint Special Operations Command.

The official says 37-year-old Jill Kelley in Tampa, Fla., received the emails from Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell that triggered an FBI investigation.

The official was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Another person who knows Kelley and Petraeus confirmed their friendship and said she saw him often.

Petraeus quit as CIA director last week after acknowledging an extramarital relationship with a woman — later identified as Broadwell.

The FBI probe began several months ago with a complaint against Broadwell. That investigation led to Broadwell's email account, which uncovered the relationship with Petraeus.