David Petraeus resigns as CIA chief citing affair

[barracuda]

Jill called a good friend who just happened to be a big Romney supporter (MSNBC) who just happened to be an FBI guy and then when this news wasn't being reported a call was made to 2 republican congressmen hoping to get the story out before the election

I get that. But I was involved in a long, dirty custody case myself, and I'd say the whole thing generated less than 200 pages of documents total.

I don't really have a problem with the feds investigation of Kelley's complaint. It seems borderline, but considering the persons involved, they made the call to pursue it, and it snowballed. What I don't get is why she complained in the first place when her own position was so precarious.

[seemslikeadream]

I don't really have a problem with the feds investigation of Kelley's complaint. It seems borderline, but considering the persons involved, they made the call to pursue it, and it snowballed. What I don't get is why she complained in the first place when her own position was so precarious.

I do have a problem with it because the emails were no more than what a ton of folks get every day on the net which the FBI does not insert itself


this was a get Obama at any cost from a Romney supporter


and then there's the other Paula reason

[barracuda]

I do have a problem with it because the emails were no more than what a ton of folks get every day on the net which the FBI does not insert itself

They might, though, if you

- asked them to,

- had a friend in the bureau, and

- the emails showed the periferal involvement of the head of the CIA

They just might.

this was a get Obama at any cost from a Romney supporter

I can see how that might factor in. But in that scenario, was Jill Kelley simply sacrificing herself deliberately for this purpose? Was the request to her friend in the bureau just a foolish mistake on her part? Why did a society maven have 30,000 pages of emails with the supreme commander-in-waiting? I mean, Gone With the Wind is only a thousand pages long. That's like a footnote to their correspondence.

[JackRiddler]

Starting to get complicated.

According to AP, Petraeus was shocked to learn about the e-mails that Broadwell sent to Kelley. According to WP, Petraeus knew about the e-mails weeks ago and told Broadwell to cut it out. According to Press TV, the five recent surprise resignations by generals and admirals mean Obama just shut down a coup attempt!

.

[seemslikeadream]

A Spy Tale With Missing Pieces
Tuesday, 13 November 2012 14:00
By Eugene Robinson, Washington Post Writers Group | Report

The one familiar aspect of the David Petraeus scandal is that he had an affair. Everything else about this story is weird.
Petraeus, who resigned Friday as director of the CIA, is brilliant, brave, dedicated and accomplished. But he is also vain. Even his most loyal and ardent supporters have to acknowledge the care with which he has always burnished his own image. He is used to being surrounded by acolytes -- staff officers, journalists, hangers-on -- whose fawning attentions can only foster a sense of superiority and entitlement.
Not every man in that situation betrays his marriage vows. Some do, as evidenced by the whole of human history.
So the sex part is deplorable but comprehensible. The rest of this saga is bizarrely opaque, starting with the timing.
According to reports by The Washington Post and other news outlets, the FBI investigation that uncovered the relationship between the retired four-star general and Paula Broadwell, his two-decades-younger biographer, was launched early in the summer. Yet Petraeus' boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, wasn't told of the inquiry until Nov. 6. Which just happened to be Election Day.
Sorry, but there are no coincidences in spy novels.
It is inconceivable that FBI agents would skulk around investigating the private life of the CIA director without informing top officials of the bureau and the Justice Department. It was obvious that as soon as Clapper knew, he would have to inform President Obama -- and that Clapper would have to make some recommendation about Petraeus' future. The whole mess surely would come to light.
Tell you what: If the right-wing conspiracy theorists will acknowledge that the scandal wouldn't have materially affected the outcome of Tuesday's vote, I'll admit that it sure looks as if someone decided to keep the White House in the dark until the political season was over.
Conspiracy buffs should also acknowledge that the scandal's timing could not possibly have been a way to keep Petraeus from testifying on Capitol Hill about Benghazi. Congress can still call him to the witness table anytime it chooses.
It's possible that the FBI kept the investigation such a closely held secret because it wanted to avoid the perception that the bureau was somehow going after the CIA. Then again, I guess it's possible that the bureau (BEG ITAL)was(END ITAL) going after the CIA.
Another mystery is why the nation's chief spy didn't practice better tradecraft in seeking to protect his little secret.
According to widely published reports, Petraeus carried on a steamy email correspondence with Broadwell through a private Gmail account that he opened using a pseudonym.
It's as if he didn't know anything about IP addresses or location data. Presumably, as CIA chief, Petraeus must have read intercepted emails sent by terrorists who tried to disguise themselves by using false names. Why did no light bulb appear above his head, no thought bubble saying, "Gee, even if I don't use my real name, somebody might figure out it's me"?
We know a bit about Broadwell, the West Point graduate whose book about Petraeus was, to say the least, quite positive. When she appeared on "The Daily Show" in January, Jon Stewart observed, "The real controversy here is, 'Is he awesome or incredibly awesome?'"
But we still know very little about Jill Kelley, who has been called "the other other woman" but who might also be just an innocent bystander. It was Broadwell's string of emails to Kelley, apparently accusing her of having or seeking an affair with Petraeus, that launched the investigation.
We know that Kelley lives in Tampa, is married, and that she and her husband count David and Holly Petraeus among their friends. It is unclear whether she knows Broadwell, and it appears that the menacing emails she received had been sent anonymously.
In the end, this may be a simple story: A woman gets a series of disturbing messages and asks an FBI agent she knows for help. A few months later, the nation's chief spy -- and perhaps its greatest living military hero -- comes crashing down.
If you believe in coincidences.
If you don't, there has to be a foreign spymaster involved, an updated version of John le Carre's diabolical Karla, an unseen figure manipulating these characters like puppets toward subtle and devious ends. Maybe I see the game that's being played. Maybe I know what this is all about.
But if I told you, I'd have to kill you.

[JackRiddler]

I don't really have a problem with the feds investigation of Kelley's complaint. It seems borderline, but considering the persons involved, they made the call to pursue it, and it snowballed. What I don't get is why she complained in the first place when her own position was so precarious.

It's possible you are not getting it because you're expecting to get it, i.e., you're expecting rational motives. (From her, or from any of them.) As you know, people tend to live their lives in alternate realities that only exist in their heads, and the "Ambassador" may be an extreme case thereof. Then again, maybe she was put under some kind of pressure or offered a reward. Which could be true of others in this drama.

I'm betting there will be loads more data on this whole affair soon, too much to process, but with answers we haven't thought of.

[barracuda]

Starting to get complicated.

Starting??

According to Press TV, the five recent surprise resignations by generals and admirals mean Obama just shut down a coup attempt!

Which is why I earlier cast the protagonists as Lancaster, Gardner and Douglas.

[JackRiddler]

They might, though, if you

- asked them to,

- had a friend in the bureau, and

- the emails showed the periferal involvement of the head of the CIA

They just might.

Except now the official story (see Scott Shane above) has become that Shirtless, the FBI friend of Kelley, was shut out of the investigation at the start and had no influence except that he went and told Cantor about it.

And it isn't "Seven Days" until someone does the Roman or Japanese thing.

Such a shame that these things never balloon to the hoped-for epic proportions. (Fitzmas again? Awwww.)

.

[seemslikeadream]

from SLaD's personal scrapbook

Eric Cantor's Petraeus October Surprise Failed as FBI Stood Firm

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT Eric Cantor: His October Surprise Failed

Amidst the sordid details of the high-ranking CIA sex scandal (that has now spread to an investigation of Jill Kelley, the woman who complained of being harassed by Gen. David Petraeus's mistress (Paula Broadwell), being involved in voluminous and questionable e-mail exchanges with the current commander of forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen), one important political factor has emerged in the last day: Republican House Majority Eric Cantor appears to have tried to put pressure on the FBI to advance the investigation, with the likely goal of an October surprise scandal that would have potentially harmed Obama's chance of re-election.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times provided insight into the Cantor involvement, with the Journal noting in the beginning of a November 12 article:

A federal agent who launched the investigation that ultimately led to the resignation of Central Intelligence Agency chief David Petraeus was barred from taking part in the case over the summer due to superiors' concerns that he was personally involved in the case, according to officials familiar with the probe.

After being blocked from the case, the agent continued to press the matter, relaying his concerns to a member of Congress, the officials said.

New details about how the Federal Bureau of Investigation handled the case suggest that even as the bureau delved into Mr. Petraeus's personal life, the agency had to address conduct by its own agent—who allegedly sent shirtless photos of himself to a woman involved in the case prior to the investigation.

The Journal went on to reveal that the "The [shirtless photograph] agent is now under investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal-affairs arm of the FBI, according to two officials familiar with the matter."

A quick recap is called for here. Some time earlier this year, the unidentified FBI agent filed an agency request to investigate alleged threatening e-mails from the mistress of Petraeus (then C.I.A. director) to one Tampa Bay resident Jill Kelley, a married socialite who is a "volunteer liaison" (whatever that means) with one of the most top secret military units (based in the Tampa area).

The agent who sent shirtless photos of himself to Kelley, via a mobile phone one presumes, was obviously a close friend of hers.

Jill Mayer of the New Yorker takes the political dimensions of the story from there:

The [New York] Times uses the word “murky” to describe what happened next, and there are many puzzling aspects. But according to the Times, at the end of October, a week or so after the F.B.I. investigators confronted Petraeus, an unidentified F.B.I. employee took the matter into his own hands. Evidently without authorization, he went to the Republicans in Congress. First he informed a Republican congressman, Dave Reichert of Washington State. According to the Times, Reichert advised this F.B.I. employee to go to the Republican leadership in the House. The F.B.I. employee then told what he knew about the investigation to Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader. Cantor released a statement to the Times confirming that he had spoken to the F.B.I. informant, whom his staff described as a “whistleblower.” Cantor said, “I was contacted by an F.B.I. employee who was concerned that sensitive, classified information might have been compromised.” But what, exactly, was this F.B.I. employee trying to expose? Was he blowing the whistle on his bosses? If so, why? Was he dissatisfied with their apparent exoneration of Petraeus? Given that this drama was playing out in the final days of a very heated Presidential campaign, and he was taking a potentially scandalous story to the Republican leadership in Congress, was there a political motive?

According to the Times, Cantor said he took the information, and “made certain that director Mueller”—that is Robert Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I.—“was aware of these serious allegations, and the potential risk to our national security.” This is a strange way to explain his contact with the F.B.I. on this matter, because it is almost inconceivable that director Mueller was not already aware that the bureau he runs had examined the e-mail account of the director of the C.I.A., and, further, confronted him in person. Such a meeting between the bureau and head of the C.I.A. would have been extraordinary, and it is fairly unthinkable that Mueller wouldn’t have been consulted. So what information was Cantor conveying when he got in touch with Mueller?

The New York Times reports of an interesting wrinkle in the political implications of the conduct of the "shirtless" agent who seemed to be pursuing Mrs. Kelley and "advocating" on her behalf with keen interest: "Later, the agent became convinced — incorrectly, the official said — that the case had stalled. Because of his 'worldview,' as the [F.B.I.] official put it, he [the "shirtless" agent] suspected a politically motivated cover-up to protect President Obama."

Normally, it should be noted, the FBI does not become involved in investigating adulterous affairs of government officials unless there is proof that national security has been compromised.

The unidentified "shirtless" F.B.I. agent now under investigation -- and his end run around the bureau through Eric Cantor during the days leading up to Election Day -- raise more serious issues than adulterous sex in terms of what appears to be a last ditch effort to influence a national election.

Fortunately, Cantor didn't bully F.B.I. Director Mueller into an October Surprise revelation of Petraeus having had an adulterous affair. More may come out, given that Broadwell may have a penchant for wanting people to know that she has inside information (including her questionable public claim that the C.I.A. was holding prisoners in Benghazi) -- and that there are questions of whether any classified information was revealed or rendered vulnerable.

But it would take a leap of unjustified faith to believe that Eric Cantor's telephone call to the head of the F.B.I. on Halloween was not an attempt to force the salacious scandal of lust (as it stands at this moment) to the front pages before the election.

Fortunately, global warming's October surprise -- Hurricane Sandy -- trumped Cantor's inappropriate meddling into an FBI investigation for opportunistic political purposes likely aimed at influencing an election

In the end, this may be a simple story: A woman gets a series of disturbing messages and asks an FBI agent she knows for help. A few months later, the nation's chief spy -- and perhaps its greatest living military hero -- comes crashing down.
If you believe in coincidences.
If you don't, there has to be a foreign spymaster involved, an updated version of John le Carre's diabolical Karla, an unseen figure manipulating these characters like puppets toward subtle and devious ends. Maybe I see the game that's being played. Maybe I know what this is all about.
But if I told you, I'd have to kill you.

Eugene Robinson

[seemslikeadream]

Who knew the key to stopping the Surveillance State was to just wait until it got so big that it ate itself.

Trevor Timm of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Gen. Allen is fourth US commander in Afghanistan to be fired or embroiled in controversy

Associated Press - This combination of file photos from 2008-2012 shows, top row from left, Gens. David McKiernan, Stanley A. McChrystal, bottom row from left, David Petraeus and John Allen in Afghanistan. The four U.S. generals led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan since 2008.
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, November 13, 2:39 PM

KABUL, Afghanistan — At the international military headquarters in Kabul, it’s jokingly being called the curse of the commander’s job.

The last four U.S. generals to run the Afghan war were either forced to resign or saw their careers tainted by allegations of wrongdoing.

PSA: Gen. John Allen did not send 30,000 e-mails to Jill Kelley

Max Fisher 2:40 PM ET
The correspondence was actually "a few hundred e-mails over a couple of years," a senior official says.
Tampas military social scene was backdrop for Petraeus scandal
Max Fisher 1:49 PM ET
Two top generals are now marked by scandals that link back to the same socialite couple that plays such a large role among top MacDill officers.
What Petraeus and Broadwell could have used instead of Gmail

Olga Khazan 1:42 PM ET
Cybersecurity concerns have spawned a host of ultra-encrypted platforms
What if America’s trust in military leadership erodes?

Max Fisher 12:05 PM ET
The country's most trusted institution is facing significant personal scandals among its top officers.

The first, Gen. David McKiernan, was ousted on May 11, 2009, a year before his term as commander was set to end. Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates wanted McKiernan’s resignation as newly elected President Barack Obama launched a counterinsurgency strategy of working to undermine the Taliban’s pull on the population.

It was the first presidential dismissal of a wartime general since President Harry Truman ousted Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

Obama replaced McKiernan with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who had a background in special operations and came in with a mandate to remake the war effort with the help of “surge” troops. But he lasted only 13 months.

In June 2010, Rolling Stone published an article that quoted scathing remarks McChrystal and his aides made about their civilian bosses, including Vice President Joseph Biden, as fools who were ignorant of the complexities of war. Obama called McChrystal back to Washington to explain and forced him to resign.

Gen. David Petraeus took over the Afghan command in July 2010 to fill the void left by McChrystal’s abrupt departure and agreed to serve for one year. He completed that term and then retired from the military to become CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Nov. 9 after he had an extramarital affair with his biographer. The affair came out as part of an FBI investigation into suspicious emails between the biographer and another woman.

The current chief, Gen. John Allen, was appointed by Obama to oversee the drawdown of U.S. and international forces ahead of the planned transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government in 2014.

Pentagon officials said Tuesday that Allen, 58, is under investigation for thousands of alleged “inappropriate communications” with the second woman involved in the Petraeus case, a Florida socialite. Allen’s nomination to become the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has now been put on hold.

Expecting Allen to be confirmed for his new post, Obama had already chosen Gen. Joseph Dunford succeed him. If confirmed, Dunford would be the 15th top commander there since 2002, a revolving door of generals that some analysts say is detrimental to the war effort.

“Rotating top commanders on an annual basis makes no management sense,” Thomas E. Ricks, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday in The New York Times. “Imagine trying to run a corporation by swapping the senior executives every year. Or imagine if, at the beginning of 1944, six months before D-Day, Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, told Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander, that it was time to give someone else a chance to lead.”

[solace]

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... in-dc-park

Paula Broadwell's License Discovered in D.C. Park
Police notify FBI -- Broadwell's attorney mum on her whereabouts

By Paul D. Shinkman
November 13, 2012 RSS Feed Print

The woman revealed to have been carrying on an affair with former CIA Director David Petraeus lost her driver's license in a Washington, D.C., park recently, sources tell U.S. News.

A Maryland National Capital Park Police spokesman confirmed that a jogger found a North Carolina license in Rock Creek Park belonging to Paula Broadwell. Park Police planned to hold it for 90 days, per policy, and then send it back to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.


The Park Police also alerted the FBI, says Bill Kellogg, a spokesman for the Park Police. The FBI did not initially return calls for comment on the report.

Broadwell's attorney, Robert F. Muse, confirmed that Broadwell, a North Carolina resident, lost her driver's license in the park.


The FBI searched Broadwell's Charlotte, N.C., home Monday for at least four hours. It is unclear if Broadwell was home at the time, though she is not mentioned in any subsequent reporting about the search.

Muse did not immediately return calls regarding Broadwell's current whereabouts.

Rock Creek Park is where Chandra Levy's body was found, interestingly.

[JackRiddler]

"a Florida socialite"

How do you get that job?

I don't see that revelations of Petraeus's affair would have influenced the election. Especially not with Sandy, it would have seemed like a joke. Maybe even Cantor saw it the same way, and avoided exposing himself by pushing it.

Some bizarro stuff there. Petraeus, Shirtless and Allen, all under the sway of the Stepford Twins. Or is it the other way around? And I bet no bodily fluids were ever exchanged among this quartet, um, quintet. There's something distinctly repressed about it.

Pending the emergence of a discernible through-line I'm just enjoying the show. America has reality TV, we at RI have this.

.

[JackRiddler]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/general- ... l-spending

General demoted for lavish travel, spending
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
— Nov. 13 2:47 PM EST



FILE - This Oct. 1, 2008 file photo shows Army Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward, Commander of U.S. Africa Command, speaking at the Pentagon. A senior U.S. official says Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has demoted, Ward, the former head of U.S. Africa Command who was accused of spending thousands of dollars on lavish travel and other unauthorized expenses. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)

By: LOLITA C. BALDOR (AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has demoted the former head of U.S. Africa Command who was accused of spending thousands of dollars on lavish travel and other unauthorized expenses, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.

Panetta stripped Gen. William "Kip" Ward of a star, which means that he will now retire as a three-star lieutenant general despite arguments from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff against the demotion. Ward also has been ordered to repay the government $82,000.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to discuss a personnel matter.

The demotion comes as retired Army Gen. David Petraeus resigned as CIA director because of an extramarital affair and Marine Gen. John Allen is being investigated for potentially improper communications with a woman.

According to the official, Panetta reviewed the Ward matter and concluded that the wrongdoing found by the Defense Department Inspector General, in a report released earlier this year, demanded accountability.

In a statement issued Tuesday, a spokesman for Ward said the general "has never been motivated by personal gain and fulfilled each and every mission assigned to him and served his country and the men and women assigned to his commands with distinction."

The spokesman, Chris Garrett, added that, "While General Ward is not perfect he has always been guided by his faith in God and the belief that there is no greater honor as a patriot than to lead those who choose to serve our nation in the armed forces."

Retiring as a three-star will cost Ward about $30,000 a year in retirement pay — giving him close to $208,802 a year rather than the $236,650 he would get as a four-star.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged Panetta to allow Ward, the former head of U.S. Africa Command, to retire at his full four-star general rank, according to defense officials. Other military leaders had noted that the demotion would cost Ward a lot of money.

The inspector general's report found that Ward used military vehicles to shuttle his wife on shopping trips and to a spa and billed the government for a refueling stop overnight in Bermuda, where the couple stayed in a $750 suite. The report detailed lengthy stays at lavish hotels for Ward, his wife and his staff members, and the use of five-vehicle motorcades when he traveled to Washington.

It also said Ward and his wife, Joyce, accepted dinner and Broadway show tickets from a government contractor during a trip during which he went backstage to meet actor Denzel Washington. The couple and several staff members also spent two nights at the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

Other charges were that Ward often extended his overseas trips — particularly those to the U.S. — for personal reasons, resulting in "exponential" increases in costs.

Although the report included responses from Ward to a number of the allegations, investigators often found records and statements that contradicted his explanations. At one point, Ward defended the Bermuda layover, saying that it came up on short notice, which is why his security team had to stay there longer. The report found records showing that the layover had been planned for at least four days in advance.

A common theme running through the report was Ward's insistence that his wife travel with him at government cost, even though it was often not authorized and she performed few official duties. It said he also routinely stayed in high-priced suites in luxury hotels rather than in standard rooms or less expensive locales.

The allegations, coming after a 17-month investigation, have delayed Ward's planned April 2011 retirement. And they were an embarrassing end note to his career, since he had claimed a place in history as the military's first commander of Africa Command.

Panetta's options regarding Ward were limited by complex laws and military guidelines. He had only one real choice: allow Ward to retire as a four-star or demote him and force him to retire as a three-star lieutenant general.

In order for Ward to be demoted to two-star rank, investigators would have to conclude that he also had problems before moving to Africa Command, and officials said that does not appear to be the case.

The investigation dragged on for so long that that Ward was temporarily dropped to two-star general status. Under military guidelines, if a full general is not serving in a four-star command or office for more than 60 days, he or she is automatically reduced to two-star rank. Ward would not be able to recoup any back pay for the time at the two-star rank, even though he is being retired at the three-star level.

Major general, or two-star, is the highest rank to which an officer can be promoted by regular military action. Becoming a three-star — lieutenant general — or a four-star general requires a presidential nomination and confirmation by Congress. It, therefore, is not considered permanent and lasts only as long as the person is serving in a job of that rank.

That technical demotion is not uncommon as generals move from job to job and unexpected delays occur. It would not have affected Ward's ability to retire as a four-star, if he had been cleared of the charges.

[JackRiddler]

Just gets better!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/1 ... _ref=false

November 13, 2012
Jason Cherkis
jason.cherkis@huffingtonpost.com

Christina Wilkie
christina.wilkie@huffingtonpost.com

Jill Kelley, Woman Who Sparked Petraeus Scandal, Ran Questionable Charity

Posted: 11/13/2012 5:47 pm EST Updated: 11/13/2012 5:59 pm EST

WASHINGTON -- Tampa, Fla., socialite and military hostess Jill Kelley, one of the women at the center of the ever-expanding scandal that brought down former CIA Director David Petraeus, founded a questionable charity for cancer patients with her surgeon husband, Scott Kelley.

Based out of the couple's mansion, the Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation claimed on its tax forms that it "shall be operated exclusively to conduct cancer research and to grant wishes to terminally ill adult cancer patients."

From the records, it appears that the charity fell far short of its mission. While the origins of the seed money used to start the charity in 2007 are unclear, financial records reviewed by The Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money not on research, but on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees.

By the end of 2007, the charity had gone bankrupt, having conveniently spent exactly the same amount of money, $157,284, as it started with -- not a dollar more, according to its 990 financial form. Of that, $43,317 was billed as "Meals and Entertainment," $38,610 was assigned to "Travel," another $25,013 was spent on legal fees, and $8,822 went to "Automotive Expenses."

The Kelleys also listed smaller expenses that appear excessive for a charity operating from a private home, including $12,807 for office expenses and supplies, and $7,854 on utilities and telephones.

Jill Kelley's sister, Natalie Khawam, was listed as the only other officer of the charity. This past April, Khawam filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, listing more than $3.6 million in liabilities, including $53,000 owed to the Internal Revenue Service and $800,000 owed to her sister and brother-in-law.

Efforts to reach the Kelleys and Khawam were unsuccessful.

In her adopted hometown of Tampa, Jill Kelley was well known for her glamorous parties and close ties to top military brass. String quartets, expensive cigars and lavish spreads were reportedly features of Kelley's hospitality. Now her role as a sort of one-woman USO has come under scrutiny with the revelation of her links to the scandal that has spurred Petraeus' resignation and started a second investigation into the conduct of another high-ranking general.

It's not Kelley's public efforts but her private ones that have caused the most stir. After allegedly receiving threatening emails from biographer Paula Broadwell, who reportedly had an affair with Petraeus, Kelley complained to the FBI. That investigation led to Petraeus' resignation the past Friday. A FBI agent has also come under criticism for allegedly sending shirtless photos of himself to Kelley. Late Monday, news broke that Kelley's email exchanges with Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, have become the focus of yet another inquiry, which could jeopardize his career.

Beyond her hosting efforts, The Washington Post reports that, according to a military officer who served on Gen. Petraeus' staff, Kelley was a "'self-appointed' go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern government officials."

But according to Tampa-based lifestyle writer Shawn Alf, high society events in the Tampa Bay area don't have much in common with parties in ultra-rich communities like the Hamptons or the Upper East Side of New York City. "It seems like an oxymoron to say 'high society' in Tampa," Alf said in an interview. "Tampa doesn't have the tradition of wealthy people being here for generations, so if you're wealthy in Tampa, you're going to spend half your time interacting with regular people."

While Kelley cultivated an unofficial position as grand hostess and diplomat, the Post and the Tampa Bay Times report that she and her husband lived above their means. In the last few years, they faced foreclosure threats on two properties and creditor lawsuits involving thousands in credit card debt.

Whatever financial turbulence the Kelleys experienced, it apparently didn't show in public. "She is a very philanthropic woman, a wonderful lady," said an employee of Events by Amore, a Tampa catering company that the Kelleys hired. The employee requested anonymity due to the nature of the scandal. "I don't want to stick my name out there."

The catering employee added that seeing military brass appear at local events, such as the ones hosted by the Kelleys, wasn't unusual.

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. |

Mrs. Astor!

Just for kicks, going to float a well-known Tampa Bay brand: Scientology!

.

[JackRiddler]

Exclusive! The wild parties at the Kelley household!