Posted on 11/13/2012 9:37:11 AM PST by jazusamo
The head of the House Homeland Security Committee said Attorney General Eric Holder may have committed a real dereliction of duty if he didnt immediately report the investigation into former CIA Director David Petraeus to President Obama.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said on CNN last night politics could have been in play if that was the case.
The fact that this became an FBI investigation to begin with, then to me, once Director Petraeus came within the scope of the investigation, its almost unprecedented for the FBI to be investigating the director of the CIA, King said, making a case that the facts heretofore dont add up. If they were going to do that, they should have immediately gone to the attorney general and also to the president of the United States because David Petraeus was a key part of the presidents foreign policy team.
Im not talking about guilt or innocence. Im saying hes under a cloud. And I have great admiration for David Petraeus. I urged him to run for president. Ive worked with him. Hes a tremendous patriot. But once he came under this scope of the investigation, they had to have they should have notified the president because David Petraeus was involved in some of the most sensitive negotiations around the world, King added.
He stressed that once the investigation, which reportedly began a few months before Obama was told, became apparent to Holder in September, the attorney general should have immediately told the commander in chief.
Its the president that runs foreign policy, not the attorney general, the congressman said, adding that Holder has failed terribly at his job if he sat on the news.
If the president did find out about it and didnt act on it until after the election, thats equally wrong. But if Holder knew about it, if the attorney general knew about it in September, I believe he had the absolute obligation to tell the president in fairness to the president what was happening, King said.
He said his panel doesnt have enough information yet to know if national security was compromised.
And then when we had Benghazi, I think if we on the intelligence committee had known about this investigation going on, we may have looked at David Petraeus, the evidence he gave us, somewhat differently because most of what he told us then has pretty much been disproven since, and again, I think we may have looked at that differently, King said.
If he knew that he was being investigated, for instance, if David Petraeus was aware of that, he may have again tried to either tailor the testimony or modify it or do something which is not going to draw attention to himself, he continued. I mean human nature, if you know theres a massive investigation going on, which could bring down your career, you may be less inclined to go all out.
Petraeus may realize his options are (1) refuse to testify, or only reveal information which does not damage Obama, (2) be prosecuted for adultery and perhaps other charges, or (3) die in an unfortunate accident.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.