http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1211/09/pmt.01.html
MORGAN: Let me turn to Ronald Kessler.
Mr. Kessler, you have got lots of good FBI contacts and you posted tonight a story about this, which contains some fascinating detail. We’ve been unable to corroborate it.
But give me in broad brush strokes what you believe to be the circumstances behind what has happened to David Petraeus. RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR (via telephone): What happened is last spring, the fact that he was communicating with this woman on his military e-mail account was uncovered by the FBI because of a general filtering system of government e-mails which uncovered a reference to something going on under a desk. Well, it actually meant he was having sex with her under the desk, but the FBI thought it might refer to corruption — in other words, doing something under the table. And that’s how this investigation started.
The FBI then went back and traced all of his e-mails and ascertained that he was having this affair with this woman, and, of course, that is a total violation of top secret security rules. You are not supposed to compromise yourself in any way where you could be blackmailed, especially the CIA director. There is almost nobody in the government who knows as many secrets as he does, and people are routinely fired for putting themselves in this position when they have a top secret security clearance.
What was even worse is that the FBI found that she broke up with him several months ago, and he continued to pursue her, sending thousands of e-mails to her. And again, this raises even more questions about his judgment.
The FBI thought that he would be immediately asked to resign. That’s what would normally happen with a government employee. But, in fact, the White House said, no, we want to wait until after the election. So, agents were furious.
I’ve been given insight to the actual agents that were doing the case, and they think it’s inexcusable that this was allowed to continue for months without firing him.
MORGAN: Let me — let me just jump in there, Ronald. Obviously, this is all your independent claims and reporting. We’ve been unable to corroborate this in the time scale we’ve had tonight but you do have very good FBI sources.
I want to turn now to Bob Baer. He’s the CNN contributor.
Bob, from everything you just heard there from Ronald Kessler, does this make sense to you that this could be the sequence of events?
BOB BAIER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, I think absolutely. But I tend to attribute more significance to the FBI of getting into his emails — into Petraeus’ e-mails.
The FBI, as a matter of course, doesn’t look at affairs, doesn’t read military officers’ e-mails or CIA officers. They have to be alerted to some sort of crime or counterintelligence problem. I can only speculate what that would be. Maybe it was something in the book that Broadwell wrote. There was some classified information.
It could have been other leaks to the press they looked into, and then once they opened a relationship like this, they found the rest of it, and that they’re able to get a warrant to continue to read his e- mails or hers. But something sparked this, something that we don’t know about so far.
KESSLER: What started it was a general filtering system not by the FBI, but probably by NSA, which looks for any abuse or problem with use of government e-mails.
“The FBI thought that he would be immediately asked to resign. That’s what would normally happen with a government employee. But, in fact, the White House said, no, we want to wait until after the election. So, agents were furious.
I’ve been given insight to the actual agents that were doing the case, and they think it’s inexcusable that this was allowed to continue for months without firing him.”
Great info Maggie!
It is not hard to imagine why he wasn’t fired. Obama liked having something to hold over his head. It’s the Chicago Way. Makes you really wonder how many other government officials, congress people and media elites have the same damocles sword hanging over their heads.