FBI Deemed Petraeus Affair Part of Criminal, Not Intel Probe - East Idaho News
National News

FBI Deemed Petraeus Affair Part of Criminal, Not Intel Probe

  Published at

Getty N 110211 FBILogo?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1352764835972MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The FBI withheld its findings about Gen. David Petraeus’ affair from the White House and congressional leaders because the agency considered them the result of a criminal investigation that never reached the threshold of an intelligence probe, law enforcement sources said Monday.

The sources said agents followed department guidelines that generally bar sharing information about developing criminal investigations. The FBI is also aware of its history under former director Herbert Hoover of playing politics and digging into the lives of public figures. As one official said, the rules are designed to protect people (both private and elected officials) when negative information about them arises in the course of a criminal investigation that is not a crime.

The FBI’s focus was on whether laws were broken, in this case whether federal cyber-harassment statutes were violated. The sources emphasized that Petraeus himself was never the focus of the investigation, nor did it turn up evidence he broke any law.

The focus was on his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with whom he had the affair that ended with his resignation as CIA director last week.

Officials said it took time to trace the harassing emails that she allegedly sent to another woman back to her.

Because Petraeus’ name was involved, criminal investigators kept an open eye for potential national security violations. They had to investigate Broadwell’s background but found no evidence she was a spy.

FBI agents were at the Broadwell home in North Carolina Monday night to carry out a consensual search that had been arranged with her lawyers, law enforcement sources said.  The search was to locate additional classified material on computers or documents in the home, the sources said.

Broadwell appears to be cooperating with investigators in an effort to make this go away, to show that she has nothing else to hide, the sources said.

But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor knew of Petraeus’ affair with Broadwell almost two weeks before the former CIA director resigned his post.

A senior Cantor aide told ABC News that the Republican congressman from Virginia learned about the FBI investigation that brought the affair to light in a phone conversation with an FBI agent Oct. 27.

Cantor then asked his chief-of-staff to pass the information along to the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller. Cantor spoke to no one else about the investigation, the aide said.

Hurricane Sandy delayed the message to Mueller until Oct. 31. Petraeus admitted the extramarital relationship and submitted his resignation nine days later.

Meanwhile, Fury is an inadequate description for the former-CIA director’s wife, Holly Petraeus’ reaction after she learned that her husband had an affair with Broadwell, a former spokesman for David Petraeus told ABC News.

“Well, as you can imagine, she’s not exactly pleased right now,” retired U.S. Army Col. Steve Boylan said. “In a conversation with David Petraeus this weekend, he said that, ‘Furious would be an understatement.’ And I think anyone that’s been put in that situation would probably agree. He deeply hurt the family.”

As for Petraeus, the retired Army general who resigned as CIA director last week after admitting the extramarital relationship, he, “first of all, deeply regrets and knows how much pain this has caused his family,” Boylan added.

“He had a huge job and he felt he was doing great work and that is all gone now.”

Petraeus knows “this was poor judgment on his part. It was a colossal mistake. … He’s acknowledged that,” Boylan said.

One result is that Petraeus could possibly face military prosecution for adultery if officials turn up any evidence to counter his apparent claims that the affair began after he left the military.

Numerous questions still remain about the investigation, and some on Capitol Hill are also frustrated because Petraeus was scheduled to testify to the House and Senate intelligence committees about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September.

The timing of Petraeus’ resignation “was what it was,” an official told ABC News, adding that the time had come to tie up any loose ends in the investigation and confront the general.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION