Bismarck’s Broadwell Caught with Classified Docs

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Written By:
LegitSlater

Nov 14, 2012
2:42pm

Just when we though Bismarck’s own Paula Broadwell was caught with her hand “All In” the cookie jar, we find it has only gone deeper.

Paula Broadwell, the author who allegedly had an affair with former CIA Director David Petraeus, is suspected of storing significant amounts of military documents, including classified material, at her home, potentially in violation of federal law.

A source familiar with case told ABC News that Broadwell admitted to the FBI she took the documents from secure government buildings. The government demanded that they all be given back, and when federal agents descended on her North Carolina home on Monday night it was a pre-arranged meeting.

If true, this saga has most likely turned from a testament in extremely poor judgement and a national embarrassment into a criminal case, potentially for both former Director of Central Intelligence and retired General David Petraeus and Broadwell. The most likely access to such classified documents came from or because of Petraeus. Broadwell, a West Point graduate like Petraeus and a trained military intelligence officer with a Top Secret clearance, also should have known better herself, despite this weak attempt at justification:

The 40-year-old author, who wrote the biography on Gen. Petraeus “All In,” is cooperating and the case, which is complicated by the fact that as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Military Reserve she had security clearance to review the documents.

She most likely has the appropriate clearance, but she must also demonstrate a “need to know” the information contained in the classified documents (which is doubtful, considering her official reason for involvement with Petraeus). More importantly, such information is rarely allowed outside a secure facility.

You just can’t make this stuff up. And you really can’t find much humor in it anymore either.