Intelligence Panels Have Busy Agenda With Petraeus, Benghazi Inquiries
Leaders of the Intelligence committees are meeting with the acting CIA director Tuesday and Wednesday to get briefed on what happened with Gen. David H. Petraeus, who resigned from the CIA last week following a scandal that emerged from an FBI investigation into his extramarital affair.
The Senate panel leaders, Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, the panel’s vice chairman, met Tuesday with the acting CIA director, Michael Morrell, according to a congressional aide. The House panel’s leaders, Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and top Democrat C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, will meet with Morrell and the FBI’s deputy director, Sean Joyce, on Wednesday, according to a senior committee aide. The Senate leaders likewise hope to meet with the FBI on Wednesday.
Feinstein and Chambliss were also slated to meet with committee members Tuesday afternoon to formulate a plan for going forward on the Petraeus scandal, the congressional aide said. Then, both panels were planning closed hearings for Thursday on the deadly Benghazi attack. Petraeus’ departure is now intermingled with the attack on the U.S. consulate there, since Petraeus led the CIA when the bombing occurred.
The congressional aide said Feinstein wanted to have Petraeus in to testify “sooner rather than later”; she is also demanding a Libya trip report he wrote and has threatened to go to the Senate floor to obtain a subpoena for it.
Intelligence committee members in both the House and Senate on Tuesday laid out some of their potential questions about Petraeus and Libya, or both. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., told Fox News the committee would need to meet with Petraeus “as it relates, not to his personal activities, as much as it relates to our national security actions.”
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, told Fox News that he was perturbed to learn of the investigation into Petraeus from news reports.
“Well, I think it’s unusual. That is the way I found out,” he said. “As you heard a few moments ago, this is not the director of fish and wildlife. This is a top national security official. And the questions we’re going to have is: Was the timing related to the election?”