Petraeus Sex Scandal Could Have Sunk Obama

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

More than a week before the election, an FBI whistleblower went to a Republican member of Congress with explosive details about a national security scandal that could have stopped President Obama’s re-election campaign dead in its tracks. But the potentially devastating “October Surprise” was hushed up by Republicans.

Although all the details are not yet available and new disclosures are coming every day, it appears that the scandal involves the CIA director leaking classified information to his mistress and the FBI not holding David Petraeus accountable for his immoral and illegal conduct. In short, it is the worst scandal of the Obama Administration and makes the third-rate burglary in the Watergate scandal look minor by comparison.

Despite the explosive nature of the allegations, two Republican members of Congress, Dave Reichert and Eric Cantor, decided to pass on the information to the FBI director and take no action themselves. They didn’t even inform their colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee or in the House leadership. It was a terrible mistake on their part that enabled Obama to escape the damaging repercussions of the scandal right before what many conservatives called the most important presidential election of our lifetimes.

Major news personalities now seem to be in a rush to play down the scandal even more. Suzanne Kelly, CNN’s Intelligence Correspondent based in Washington, D.C., said on Monday, “It is not illegal to have an affair,” in regard to Petraeus admitting one. The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer wrote, “Within the military, there are rules about adultery. But within civilian life, should there be?”

Retired Army Maj. Glenn MacDonald, editor-in-chief of MilitaryCorruption.com, told Accuracy in Media, “While Petraeus is a retired Army general and a civilian, most recently director of the CIA, he is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). According to regulations, if an officer is drawing retired pay, they can be called back on active duty to face charges at court-martial. Since adultery is a crime in the military, it is possible, although unlikely, that General Petraeus could face legal action.”

He added, “If he was charged, my guess is he would pay a fine and perhaps be reduced in rank one grade. Barring a finding of treason or leaking secrets, it is my educated guess Petraeus would not do any jail time.”

The leaking of secrets, however, has now become the subject of several news reports, with claims of classified information on his mistress Paula Broadwell’s computer. Broadwell herself publicly gave information about the attack in Libya that appears to be classified. What’s more, The New York Times reports that FBI agents went to Broadwell’s home on Monday night “and were seen carrying away what several reporters at the scene said were boxes of documents.” The Washington Post reports that a senior law enforcement official said the agents were searching for any classified or sensitive documents that may have been in Broadwell’s possession.

Because of Cantor’s failure to go public, the scandal exploded only after the election, as Petraeus submitted his resignation as CIA director and Obama accepted it. “I would like to congratulate President Obama on his re-election,” Cantor had actually said on his blog, knowing that Obama’s administration was engaged in a massive cover-up. Only later did he acknowledge, in response to a New York Times report, that he had the information that could have derailed Obama’s presidential campaign and possibly given Mitt Romney the presidency.

Cantor, the House Majority Leader, had produced an 8,000-word report on October 23 assailing Obama for instituting an imperial presidency. He and his colleagues had been extremely critical of Obama’s management of U.S. foreign policy, suggesting that the war on terrorism had been badly mishandled and that the administration was covering up what really happened when four Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11. Petraeus was right in the middle of this scandal and was scheduled to testify before Congress about it.

It was in this context that a whistleblower approached Reichert and then Cantor with information about the FBI cover-up of the CIA director’s activities. The whistleblower undoubtedly thought that the Republicans would take the information and act on it, exposing the high-level cover-up before the presidential election. Instead, Cantor was content to let FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was re-appointed by Obama, handle the investigation.

But Cantor knew at that point, because of what the whistleblower had told him, that Mueller had not informed Congress about the probe and was failing to hold Petraeus accountable for his affair and the handling of the classified information. So turning the information over to Mueller was the equivalent of muzzling the whistleblower.

“On Saturday, Oct. 27, Cantor spoke by phone to an FBI employee who told him about an investigation, including the details about Petraeus’ affair, and said he was concerned that classified information had been compromised,” reported Jonathan Karl of ABC News. The FBI employee first contacted Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), who then put the employee in touch with Cantor, Karl added. Notice the reference to “details about Petraeus’ affair.”

The revelation of Republicans being in possession of advance detailed knowledge of the scandal was first disclosed by The New York Times, which reported, “…the F.B.I. agent who had helped get a preliminary inquiry started, and learned of Mr. Petraeus’s affair and the initial concerns about security breaches, became frustrated.” It is clear that that he went to Congress out of frustration with the failure of the FBI to go after Petraeus and his mistress.

Cantor’s official statement was, “I was contacted by an F.B.I. employee concerned that sensitive, classified information may have been compromised and made certain Director Mueller was aware of these serious allegations and the potential risk to our national security.” (Emphasis added)

The FBI, of course, was completely aware of these “serious allegations” all along. The FBI knew about the scandal but was not acting on it, which is why the whistleblower went to Reichert and Cantor in the first place.

By going to Mueller, Cantor put the FBI whistleblower’s career in jeopardy. This helps explain why the whistleblower is fast becoming the subject of various negative news reports about his personal life. He trusted the Republicans and they failed him.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.

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11 thoughts on “Petraeus Sex Scandal Could Have Sunk Obama

  1. Maybe Cantor thought it more politically savvy to wait, hoping obama would be re-elected. Until the media sees the Obama administration and the far left for the deviant deflectors of truth they are, nothing the Republicans say or do will matter. Maybe he saw this as an avenue to push the media narrative to the right. If Romney had won the election based on This scandal , he would have been ham strung from the start by a resentful media already awash in an attack dog mentality. Basically, a pit bull on steroids lookimg for someone to chew on. Even if this wasn’t Cantor’s intention it could still work out in our favor. But then again, mental disorders are hard to crack.

  2. Hey, I was only joking (above) when I said I expected to see Satan used as an excuse for Obama’s crushing victory. Well low and behold ‘End time servant’ now claims it was Satan that lead to his victory – only he is serious! The discourse on the site is truly amazing and scary at the same time. Who is going to trump Satan with Aliens? As far as I’m aware extra terrestrials are still available for anyone short of a conspiracy ‘link’. It’s pleasing to be of help to folk like you. Footnote: Don’t go with the flow when for just USD 50.00 I’ll design you your own personalised Obama Conspiracy.

  3. The real rulers the luciferians would not let thst happen again cliff you truly do not see the big picture you are afraid if you know which you do by now the names of the minions of lucifer but you lack true knowledge to great wisdom about the real crisis in the world which will be fullfilled the sad Thing is your not with the true faith which comes first your a member of the Nwo church controlled by the same forces that control the world

  4. The gift that keeps on giving. The bamster and his minions should just straighten up and fly right and he’d have a hell of a lot less problems.
    I was depressed after this election but quickly realized we just have 4 more years to expose the lies and find the leader who will break this fall into the financial abyss……

  5. OMG, now the jackass 0bummer screwed up his cover-up already! Now he has to cover-up the cover-up he screwed up when he screwed up his attempted cover-up. What a bunch of dumb-ocrat idiots. And they are in…power? How did that happen? They got the place so messed-up no one wants to mess with it. Why else would the Repubs run McCain(hahaha), then follow with Mitt Romney, a much better choice no matter what way you slice it.
    With all the big plans Obummer has for destroying America and her people, I can only hope for him having a massive cardiac event that destroys him first.

  6. The feeble excuses why Obama won the presidency on this site grows daily and is only limited by the persons imagination and propensity towards bouts of paranoia. I am waiting for aliens to join Satan the endless ‘excuse list’. Get over-it peoples! Accept that all your rabid anti-Obama propaganda, Tea Parties (the name is a joke, right?) outright hatred etc did nothing to assist a Republican win. Democracy was the winner on the day. Remember: God Loves Barack Hussein Obama even if you don’t.

    1. I have not one doubt about God loving Barack Obama, but there are thousands of serious doubts about Obama loving or being a follower of God! Mr. Obama, along with hismentors, are followers of the very first community organizer, the father of all lies! Good cannot and will not come from evil.

    2. Why should democracy be valued when the majority of voters are unable to make an informed decision? The days of the fourth estate are long gone, and the BBC fiasco over Jimmy Savile should raise the question of how often information is suppressed by the MSM for political reasons, as happened when operation Ore resulted in links between child pornography and the British government being uncovered.

      The Australian inquiry into the extent of child abuse has the Roman Catholic Church in damage control mode, with the problem of Savile’s papal knighthood proving to be a source of embarrassment for Catholics.

      Although the church and state are supposed to be separate in the US political system, the reality is that the Senate is based on the Roman model in which religion was simply another means of maintaining control over people.

      Adultery is a set of social norms which have traditional force because of ancient law. The thing is that originally there was an implicit gender bias, with the wife being under the authority of the husband. A married man having sexual relations with an unmarried woman was not adultery in the original sense of the word.

      Sexual guilt continues to be a mainstay of control, whether it be MI5 video of “boy buggering” or the licencing of marriage within the civil system. The Roman condition consisted of the religious ideal of chastity and the secular reality of hedonism, in accordance with the Pharasaic tradition of making the law a burden. The Pharisees never died out, they just changed their name and extended their sphere of influence.

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