Did pillow-talk in TAMPA lead to BOTH the cooked ISIS intel AND the Petraeus scandal? And are they linked?
A lot of people thought it was shocking and curious that the Petraeus thing happened; that such a widely respected man with such a distinguished resume would be so careless with intel, even if it was just paper & printed and sitting in a locked home cabinet, as opposed to digital, sitting on a server in a bathroom closet, thus available to even the lowest level hacker in Russia or China, like some people we know.
It was also shocking that he was so publicly humiliated for it. Nobody responsible thought he should escape unpunished, to be sure, but there were plenty who thought the Obama Administration’s treatment of him was tinged with a certain amount of sadistic glee. Yeah, he had a mistress, which is what everyone remembers most about his downfall, but it’s hardly the first time a guy let his ____ do his thinking for him. That was the least of it.
Now fast-forward from November 2012, when Petraeus resigned in disgrace, to the recent cooked intel scandal. Not a month ago, we find out one of the whistleblowers raising alarm to the intel community’s Inspector General came from CENTCOM. Where’s CENTCOM? Tampa. Now, hold on to that little piece of information and consider this: Yesterday, Petraeus, “in his first public testimony before lawmakers since resigning as CIA director,” chooses that venue to publicly apologize “for sharing classified information with his biographer-mistress“… on the same day subpoenas start flying all over the place related to continuing litigation arising from his mistress/intel mess, from… a rich Tampa socialite (Jill Kelley). Really? Can this really be a coincidence?
So, let’s pause for a second and see if we can knit this all together: Turns out Tampa is CENTCOM’s (United States Central Command’s) domestic HQ (They have another facility overseas). Petraeus was CENTCOM’s chief from October 2008 through June 2010. You may remember that after the 2008 election, then-President-elect Obama made a big deal out of making sure everybody knew he was keeping a Bush hold-over and isn’t Obama a big-man-bipartisan-gawd for doing that. Obama later moved Petraeus to Afghanistan for a year and then finally to CIA, where he got busted with the mistress and the intel and from which he ultimately resigned in November 2012, right after Obama’s re-election to a second term… And I mean… right after. Within days.
As it happens, CENTCOM isn’t our only facility in Tampa. It’s home to MacDill Air Force Base and, from what I’ve read, a hot-bed of very high-ranking military brass mixing socially with Tampa’s very rich, very often, in very swish parties at their very swish mansions. There is a very vibrant social scene in Tampa, evidently, with lots of brass & botox rubbing up against each other with much regularity. Married brass. And married botox. Married… not necessarily to each other…
…Enter the flying subpoenas… With implications of more mistresses, (WH?) leaked emails, and a WH “press plan” to manage it all…
What’s going on here? This whole thing stinks. I always thought Petraeus was pushed out for reasons unknown, but I can speculate. I think this good man (flawed like the rest of us) might have been preparing to say something unflattering about the Obama Administration. And this Jill Kelley chick? Who else but the White House had motivation to leak those emails? I haven’t really, truly stewed over this whole thing, but my radar is up. I invite you to just scan the excerpted stories below (Exhibits A/B) with what I’ve posited in mind and leave your comments. I haven’t got a solid idea what this all means, but I know it’s meaningful…
EXHIBIT A:
August 25, 2015
NYT: Inquiry Weighs Whether ISIS Analysis Was Distorted
The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating allegations that military officials have skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State to provide a more optimistic account of progress, according to several officials familiar with the inquiry.
The investigation began after at least one civilian Defense Intelligence Agency analyst told the authorities that he had evidence that officials at United States Central Command — the military headquarters overseeing the American bombing campaign and other efforts against the Islamic State — were improperly reworking the conclusions of intelligence assessments prepared for policy makers, including President Obama, the government officials said.
Fuller details of the claims were not available, including when the assessments were said to have been altered and who at Central Command, or Centcom, the analyst said was responsible. The officials, speaking only on the condition of anonymity about classified matters, said that the recently opened investigation focused on whether military officials had changed the conclusions of draft intelligence assessments during a review process and then passed them on…
It is not clear how that review process changes when Defense Intelligence Agency analysts are assigned to work at Centcom — which has headquarters both in Tampa, Fla., and Qatar…
EXHIBIT B:
September 22, 2015
AP: Journalists Subpoenaed in Lawsuit Over Petraeus Scandal
Nine journalists were issued subpoenas Tuesday as part of a lawsuit over the Obama administration investigation that led to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus.
Those subpoenaed to provide depositions and documents include current and former reporters and editors at The Associated Press, The Washington Post, the Daily Beast and Fox News.
Jill and Scott Kelley of Tampa, Florida, sued the federal government in 2013, alleging that officials violated the U.S. Privacy Act by disclosing information about the couple. Jill Kelley was implicated in 2012 scandals involving Petraeus and Marine Gen. John R. Allen.…
The AP was the first to report the name of Kelley, a (Tampa) socialite who hosted parties attended by high-ranking military brass.…
Pentagon officials acknowledged in earlier depositions that they developed a “press plan” with members of an unspecified delegation from the White House in November 2012 to tell reporters that emails between Allen and Jill Kelley were “potentially inappropriate” and to suggest that the two had a sexual relationship.
Jill Kelley denied having an affair, and Allen was later exonerated by the Pentagon’s inspector general…
In 2012, Jill Kelley contacted a social acquaintance at the FBI to complain that an unknown person had sent her harassing emails. Her complaint triggered a criminal investigation that led agents to Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’ biographer. Broadwell had been having an affair with the former Army general, who was then director of the spy agency.
The FBI concluded that Broadwell had forwarded to her personal email account at least 1,500 messages about intelligence and military matters from Petraeus’ official CIA email account. Petraeus resigned Nov. 9, 2012, and later pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.
Jill Kelley’s name and some harassing emails were disclosed on Nov. 11, 2012, to reporters amid the sensational disclosures about Petraeus. Two days later, she was linked to Allen, then-commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Like I said, if you can offer some clarity on this thread of a thought of mine, I’d love to see in comments (Be nice!). *Be sure you are clicked into this specific post and not just my blog-site generally, and to scroll all the way down to see the comments box.