“Mueller enjoys the reputation today that Petraeus had two weeks ago. Mueller meets with the president every week without the attorney general there. It is inconceivable that he knew – his agents were reading the emails of the director of the CIA and the director’s mistress – and did not tell the president.”
Matthew Boyle
The Daily Caller
11/15/2012
…Napolitano said the federal investigation was “the use of law enforcement either for a personal vendetta that [Tampa military liaison Jill] Kelley pushed through her FBI agent connection, or a political vendetta – somebody wanting to silence, by embarrassing, humiliating and destroying the credibility of Petraeus.”
“Not only does it not appear there was a crime committed,” Napolitano continued, “[and] not only does it not appear that there was a national security implication, but this is hardly the type of thing that the FBI investigates. This was instigated, apparently, by the Kelley woman, and her friend in the FBI. That is an inappropriate means to commence an investigation by the FBI.”…
…The FBI agent Kelley contacted with her initial complaint apparently became personally invested in the investigation, and sent shirtless photographs of himself to Kelley, according to numerous reports. A lawyer for the agent, who has been identified as FBI veteran Frederick Humphries, admitted this week that the pictures were sent “years ago” as part of a “larger context of what I would call social relations in which the families would exchange numerous photos of each other.”
Somehow, the FBI obtained personal emails between the different parties involved, including Kelley, Broadwell, Petraeus and others. Unless those individuals voluntarily surrendered their emails — a possibility that, while it appears unlikely, has not been ruled out — Napolitano said there are only a few equally troubling ways by which the FBI could have obtained the emails.
“In order for the FBI to read your emails, my emails, Tucker Carlson’s emails – they need a search warrant,” Napolitano told TheDC. “They can only get a search warrant in one of two ways under the current law: They could go to a federal judge and demonstrate probable cause of crime – meaning that [they have evidence] Petraeus probably committed a crime, or in my hypothetical [they have evidence] Tucker Carlson, you or me [committed a crime]. That’s hardly the case here. Or, under the [USA] Patriot Act, they could write their own search warrant if they satisfy themselves – a dubious and unconstitutional standard, but that’s the law no less: if they satisfy themselves that terrorist activity was afoot, [which is] also an irrelevant and absurd consideration here. So that means I don’t how they could have gotten a search warrant.”
“The third way they could have gotten his emails is without a search warrant by hacking into the CIA’s computers, in which case they [would have] violated criminal law themselves,” Napolitano added. “They’ve done it before – they’re probably doing it as we speak – but this would be a public violation of criminal law by the agents that did [if that’s the case].”…
…“Whoever is doing the leaking wants to smear Petraeus, because they don’t want him to confront the mountain of evidence that exists which would contradict the testimony he gave on Sept. 14,” Napolitano said. “Sept. 14 is three days after Benghazi and two days before [U.N. Ambassador] Susan Rice’s infamous interviews. Petraeus probably said what the political hacks in the White House told him to say. Sept. 14 is also the height of the presidential campaign. So, the world is very different now.”…
Read the complete article at The Daily Caller.
Related: Judge Napolitano: ‘Somebody Obviously Wanted to Silence General Petraeus, Somebody Wanted Him Out’
…Napolitano said the notion that the White House didn’t know until last week about Petraeus’ affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, is “utter nonsense.”
“The president doesn’t know about this? He gets briefed by the head of the FBI every week!” Napolitano pointed out. The judge, who wrote an opinion piece today on FoxNews.com entitled ‘Silencing Petraeus,’ said it’s obvious to him that somebody “wanted to silence General Petraeus, somebody wanted to get him out of the job.”
He also explained that Gen. Petraeus underwent a thorough background check before becoming CIA Director a year and a half ago, so his relationship with Broadwell would have been uncovered long ago.
“(The affair) was known and whispered about when he was the commander of troops in Afghanistan – that he was spending too much time with this woman, she was getting too much preferential treatment,” said Napolitano…
Update: The Real Reason You Should Care About the Petraeus Affair: Privacy. If the CIA director couldn’t keep his emails secret, neither can you.
…It is easy for federal authorities to get access to your online activities. If you think the feds need a warrant to start looking at your email, you’re dead wrong. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the law governing online communications, was written in 1986. Congress wasn’t sure whether to treat email, then in its infancy, more like letters or phone calls. People used to download their email back then, so leaving your information on a company’s server meant the feds had to do less paperwork to access it. Now everyone’s information is stored online, but that archaic standard is still in place…
Silencing General Petraeus No keen observer could believe the government’s Pollyanna version of these events. An essay by Judge Napolitano at Reason Magazine.
