The Department of Defense is investigating an incident related to the sex scandal that caused the resignation of former CIA Director David Petraeus on the same day he met with President-elect Donald Trump.
Petraeus has been suggested as a possible pick for secretary of state, according to a senior official with knowledge of the Trump transition team.
“Just met with General Petraeus — was very impressed!” Trump tweeted out Monday following the meeting in Manhattan.
“I was with him for about an hour,” Petraeus said after the meeting. “He basically walked us around the world. Showed a great grasp of a variety of the challenges that are out there and some of the opportunities as well. Very good conversation and we’ll see where it goes from here. We’ll see where it goes from here.”
But on the same day of the meeting, Monday, a U.S. official leaked information on a DoD investigation to The Associated Press that brings Petraeus’s divulging of classified info back into the forefront.
This official said investigators are hoping to find out who exactly leaked information about Petraeus’s biographer and former mistress Paula Broadwell concerning her security clearance.
The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Petraeus pleaded guilty to divulging classified information and signed his name on a plea agreement in March 2015 to avoid jail time, after he admitted to lying to FBI agents about the classified material he sent to Broadwell. Despite the controversy about the affair and the lying and the mishandling of classified information, the Pentagon permitted Petraeus to keep his four stars, allowing him to maintain a sizable military pension.
Unlike former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Petraeus willfully gave a trove of classified information in 2011 to Broadwell to assist her in writing a book, and then lied about doing so to FBI agents in 2012.
Now that this information has been leaked, potentially with the goal of complicating Petraeus’s standing with Trump, it remains to be seen whether Petraeus will still be in the running for secretary of state.
Last week, Petraeus told the BBC he’d serve in the Trump administration if asked, and would bring an incredible amount of practical military experience to bear, as he ran U.S. Central Command from 2008 to 2010, which is tasked with overseeing operations in 20 countries.
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