Politics
Obama to hold first post-election press conference
President Barack Obama was expected to make his first public comments Wednesday on the growing scandal around two of the country’s most well-known generals, while lawmakers dug into the tangled tale of emails that exposed one general’s career-ending extramarital affair and the other’s questionable relationship with a Florida socialite. Their question: Was national security threatened?
David Petraeus, who resigned as head of the CIA on Friday after admitting an extramarital affair with his biographer, had been set to testify this week before Congress on the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which the U.S. ambassador was killed.
Petraeus has indicated his willingness to testify, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said Wednesday. No date for the testimony has been set, and Feinstein said the testimony will be limited to the Benghazi attacks.
The 60-year-old Petraeus, whose highly respected career as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, led some to speculate on a run for president, has expressed regret over the affair with Paula Broadwell. U.S. officials say the 40-year-old Broadwell sent harassing, anonymous emails to a woman she apparently saw as a rival for Petraeus’ affections. That woman, Jill Kelley, in turn traded sometimes flirtatious email messages with current Afghanistan commander Gen. John Allen, possible evidence of another inappropriate relationship.
The CIA’s acting director, Michael Morell, has started meeting with top Senate intelligence officials to explain the agency’s take on the events that led to Petraeus’ resignation. The lawmakers are especially concerned over reports that Broadwell had classified information on her laptop, though FBI investigators say they concluded there was no security breach. Morell was expected to meet with the leaders of the House intelligence committee on Wednesday.
Obama had hoped to use Wednesday’s news conference, his first since his re-election, to build support for his economic proposals heading into negotiations with lawmakers on the so-called fiscal cliff — the year-end, economy-jarring expiration of tax cuts Americans have enjoyed for a decade, combined with automatic across-the-board reductions in spending for the military and domestic programs.
But the scandal threatens to overshadow Obama’s economic agenda this week, derail plans for a smooth transition in his national security team and complicate war planning during a critical time in the Afghanistan war effort.
