The Blaze via Noisy Room "During the daily White House press briefing on Tuesday, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl told White House Press Secretary Jay Carney that it seems “utterly bizarre” that President Barack Obama and his administration first became aware of the David Petraeus scandal the day after the election." (Video at the link)
Carney tap-danced and passed it off to the FBI, but Karl pressed again:
“But you do you understand how people would find this utterly bizarre?” the reporter pressed. “The day after election? And the anger that you are hearing on Capitol Hill that this was going on…at least the timing, the appearance.”
So that's when Carney pulled the old Ted Kennedy side step, saying how busy the President was working on the economy and seeing that people get back to work and blahdy, blahdy blah.
Gawker flow chart
Sense of Events attempts to lay out the scenario for us to grasp (printed here in the original form without corrections):
...."Okay, let me try to walk this dog:"
•Petraeus and Paul Broadwell have an affair, supposedly breaking it off about three months ago.
•The communicated covertly with each other by using a Google Gmail account set up for just that purpose, using the same logon to write emails to one another but never sending them, which would leave an electronic trail. Instead, they save them as drafts and then read them unsent.
•Broadwell decided that Kelley is trying to muscle in on her man and sends Kelley some (vaguely) threatening emails, stupidly using the special Gmail account, thus laying down electronic breadcrumbs.
•Kelley, not knowing who sent the emails (which in fact are pretty innocuous) happens to have a personal relationship with and FBI agent in town. She shows him the emails and,
•He springs into action and opens an investigation! Why? Not because there is anything actually criminally actionable in the emails but because he wants to have an affair with Kelley! How do we know? Because his superiors yanked him off the investigation for sending Kelley topless photos of himself.
•Nonetheless, the investigation goes forward because, well, that's what investigations do. The FBI cracks the secret Gmail account and discovers at least some of the emails between Petraeus and Broadwell. But, as the FBI has explained, they did not uncover evidence that Petraeus himself had done anything illegal. Nor for that matter, has any such evidence been uncovered against Broadwell, at least so far. And yet, only last night did the FBI get around to searching Broadwell's residence.
•Apparently, Gen. Allen was roped into the investigation because the FBI was reviewing Kelley's emails, too, and discovered a reference to the Broadwell emails in an email she had sent to Allen.
" The senior defense official said the voluminous collection of e-mails sent between Allen and Kelley occurred between 2010 and this year but did not give details. The official also declined to say whether Allen sent or received any of the messages from his military or government e-mail accounts, or if classified material was compromised."