E-mails by Broadwell to another woman led to Petraeus’ fall

The FBI investigation that led to the discovery of Petraeus’ extra-marital affair and his resignation started after the agency began monitoring his emails.

Washington: The FBI investigation that led to the discovery of CIA Director David Petraeus’ extra-marital affair and his resignation started after the agency began monitoring his emails.

The agency was alerted that Petraeus’ biographer Paula Broadwell, with whom he had an affair, may have had accessed his personal email account. The FBI investigation began when someone reported that suspicious emails were allegedly sent from Broadwell. The agency then determined that she allegedly had emailed a number of government employees. The FBI was at one point trying to determine whether any of the employees were being stalked, sources told Fox News. According to the report, the FBI investigation started with a complaint several months ago about ‘harassing’ e-mails from Broadwell to an unidentified third person, a government official briefed on the case. Federal agents reportedly discovered the exchanges between Broadwell and Petraeus when following up on the complaint, the report said. The person who complained about Broadwell’s purported harassing messages was not a family member neither a government official, the report added. A congressional official who was briefed on the matter on Friday said that senior intelligence officials had explained that the FBI investigation ‘started with two women’. Broadwell told Fox News earlier this year when talking about the biography "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus" that she met the retired four-star Army general when she was post-graduate student at Harvard and he came to the university to speak, the report said. According to the report, they kept in touch via email and went running together when she came to Washington, Broadwell said. "He gave me his card," Broadwell, who co-wrote the book said, adding: "We kept in touch." Broadwell also called Petraeus`` wife of 38 years, Holly Petraeus, "a wonderful military spouse." Source said the FBI investigation ended when the agency determined no criminal acts had been committed, it added. ANI