The CIA has announced they’re going to investigate David Petraeus to find out whether his demands for perks were designed to facilitate his affair with Paula Broadwell.
Given allegations that he flew to Paris for some sexy time with Broadwell, I guess the investigation is merited.
But I’m very skeptical of the timing of the investigation.
As far as I know, the investigation was first reported in mid-afternoon by the AP.
That would place the announcement between today’s closed hearings with acting CIA Director Mike Morrel and tomorrow’s hearings with Petraeus.
And at least from the leaks about today’s hearing, it is possible that Petraeus, in public statements, may deviate from the CIA story on the attack.
Here’s what Dutch Ruppersberger said about the CIA’s story after today’s briefing.
Mr. Ruppersberger said on Thursday that this criticism was unfair and that the intelligence community’s assessment of what had happened was now roughly what Ms. Rice recounted on several Sunday talk shows. “You had a group of extremists who took advantage of a situation, and unfortunately we lost four American lives,” he said.
Mr. Ruppersberger also underscored what intelligence officials have said for weeks: that the attack on the diplomatic mission seemed disorganized, and without good command and control, but that the second attack, a mortar strike on the C.I.A. base nearly eight hours later, was much more sophisticated. It was clearly the work of terrorists, he said.
And here’s what Petraeus plans to say tomorrow.
[Petraeus] knew “almost immediately” that Ansar al-Sharia, a loosely connected radical Islamist group, was responsible for the attack, as suggested by multiple sources and video from the scene, said the source. At the same time, a stream of intelligence — including about 20 distinct reports — also emerged indicating that a brewing furor over the anti-Islamic video preceded the attack.
The CIA eventually disproved the reports that film-related protests had anything to do with the attack. But this didn’t happen until after Petraeus’ initial briefings to lawmakers, in which he discussed all the possibilities, the source said.
Whereas Morrel was at least reported to be expected to defend the CIA’s confusion about the video, this suggests Petraeus wants to distance himself from that early confusion.
We’ll see whether the announced plan to investigate his junkets (ha!) to Paris changes that testimony.
Updated: Edited for clarity.