Heat's on President Obama as collateral damage from Gen. David Petraeus’ two-timing h
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Jill Kelley, social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base, is mystery woman Paula Broadwell harassed via email leading to FBI probe
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Heat's on President Obama as collateral damage from Gen. David Petraeus’ two-timing hits Gen. John Allen
The President, his Election Day momentum stalled by a mountain of salacious headlines, is trying to replace key members of his cabinet and national security team as angry congressional leaders demand answers about the Petraeus affair and why they were given zero advance notice of the spymaster’s lively love life.
By Corky Siemaszko , Jennifer H. Cunningham AND Tracy Connor / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 12:46 AM
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...s14n-2-web.jpg SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
The Pentagon has reason to be concerned. President Obama last year with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen.
The seedy scandal surrounding Gen. David Petraeus has now imperiled his successor as commander in Afghanistan, given the U.S. military a black eye and embarrassed America on the world stage.
The fallout from the shenanigans has also left President Obama with a huge headache as he tries to pull American forces out of Afghanistan by 2014, ending the country’s longest war.
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PHOTOS: THE KEY PLAYERS IN THE PETRAEUS SCANDAL
The President, his Election Day momentum stalled by a mountain of salacious headlines, is trying to replace key members of his cabinet and national security team as angry congressional leaders demand answers about the Petraeus affair and why they were given zero advance notice of the spymaster’s lively love life.
With the frat house-like atmosphere surrounding the top defenders of the United States, no one is sure where this “Greek tragedy,” as one politician called it, will wind up.
The sexcapades that have made America’s top brass a laughingstock came to light when raven-haired bombshell Jill Kelley complained to the FBI about sketchy emails and touched off the probe that doomed Petraeus as CIA director.
PHOTOS: WHO'S WHO IN THE PETRAEUS SCANDAL?
Now, the collateral damage from Petraeus’ two-timing has hit Gen. John Allen, whose appointment to head NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold after it turns out he and Kelley exchanged a blizzard of sometimes “flirtatious” emails.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...roadwell-3.jpg Cliff Owen/AP
Paula Broadwell holds a drink in the kitchen of her brother's house in Washington, D.C.
Obama — who is facing tough questions about why he wasn’t informed of the months-long investigation until after Election Day — has expressed “faith” in Allen.
But the Marine’s new assignment was in limbo as the Pentagon combed through reams of emails he exchanged with Kelley.
In a now-familiar refrain, Allen claims he was just friends with Kelley, a married mom of three who worked as an unpaid social liaison at the Tampa base housing U.S. Central Command, the Washington Post reported.
He wrote her several hundred emails over a couple of years, a senior U.S. official told the paper — disputing another Pentagon estimate that the two exchanged up to 30,000 documents and emails.
“He’s never been alone with her,” the official said. “Did he have an affair? No.”
The exact content of the emails is unknown; officials characterized them as “flirtatious” but not sexually explicit and said Allen bandied about terms like “dear” and “sweetheart.”
But one source told Fox News that the emails were indeed raunchy, describing them as the “equivalent of phone sex over email.”
Regardless, the four-star Marine general and the sexy socialite were close enough that Allen, 58, took the extraordinary step of intervening in a child-custody battle being waged by Kelley’s twin sister.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...allen-1112.jpg Musadeq Sadeq/AP
Gen. John Allen speaks to reporter earlier this year.
In a Sept. 22 letter to a Washington, D.C., court, Allen said he and wife Kathy knew Natalie Khawam from social functions as a “dedicated mother whose only focus is to provide the necessary support, love and care for her son.”
Petraeus, 60, also wrote a letter on behalf of Khawam after she lost custody of her son, now 4, to ex-husband Grayson Wolfe, saying he knew her through Kelley.
Kelley, a statuesque surgeon’s wife, has been described as an enchantress who loved rubbing elbows with military brass during lavish parties she threw at her mansion — even as her family was buckling under debt.
She drove Petraeus’ ex-mistress, buff biographer Paula Broadwell, into such a frenzy of jealousy that Broadwell allegedly sent Kelley anonymous emails warning her to keep her hands off the nation’s spymaster.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...s14n-3-web.jpg Alex Wong/Getty Images
He exchanged hundreds, maybe thousands, of emails with a stunning social liaison. Now the outlook for Gen. John Allen, the president’s nominee as NATO commander, is somewhat fuzzy.
It was revealed Tuesday that Broadwell, 40, even sent Allen at least one nameless email about Kelley during her poison-pen campaign.
That email, according to the Wall Street Journal, was from “KelleyPatrol” and warned Allen of the “seductress” from Tampa. Concerned, the general passed along the email to Kelley.
Kelley’s subsequent complaint to an FBI buddy about the harassing missives sparked the unusual investigation that blew the lid off Petraeus’ romance with Broadwell and forced him to resign last week.
Even the agent is in trouble. He reportedly was so infatuated with Kelley that he sent her pictures of himself shirtless and was reprimanded for meddling in the probe.
White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked Tuesday if the President was embarrassed that he had no idea his top intelligence official was being probed.
“The President was certainly surprised when he was informed about the situation,” Carney said, insisting the FBI followed protocol.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...l-kelley-5.jpg Tim Boyles/Getty Images
Jill Kelley leaves her home in Tampa on Tuesday.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, urged Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Tuesday to let Allen keep his job.
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, called the drama “tragic.”
“This has the elements in some ways of a Hollywood movie or a trashy novel,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show.
Kelley, 37, apparently isn’t enjoying the plot twists. She has called 911 four times in two days to complain about media camped outside her house, once asking for “diplomatic protection,” according to the Tampa Tribune.
A Lebanese Catholic who came to the U.S. as a chid, she had no comment on the whiplash-inducing developments as she stepped out in a form-fitting dress the color of bubble gum.
She has hired D.C. scandal lawyer Abbe Lowell and crisis spin doctor Judy Smith, who did not return calls.
Insiders say she is devastated that asking the FBI to look into the creepy emails from Broadwell ended in disgrace for Petraeus, a politically savvy general once considered a possible contender for the White House.
Her brother, David Khawam, said she’s done nothing wrong.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...lley8-1112.jpg Reuters
Gen. David Petraeus shakes hands with author Paula Broadwell last year.
“It’s awful for the family and awful for the nation,” Khawam, a Philadelphia-area lawyer, told the Burlington County Times.
“There are a lot of victims here — Holly Petraeus, my sister and her children.”
In Tampa, where Kelley and her sister live in a $1.8 million columned manse, neighbors said they were social butterflies.
“Natalie and her sister, they’re certainly not shrinking violets,” one said.
Last year, Khawam was slammed by a divorce judge for making “sensational accusations” against her ex that were “so distorted that they defy any common sense view of reality.”
“Ms. Khawam appears to lack any appreciation or respect for the importance of honesty and integrity in her interactions with her family, employers and others with whom she comes in contact,” Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz wrote last year.
A starkly different portrait of Khawam was given by Petraeus and Allen in their letters to the court, filed within two days of each other.
“Natalie clearly loves [her son] and cherishes each and every opportunity she has to spend time with him,” Allen wrote.
Allen, who took over command of allied forces in Afghanistan from Petraeus in July 2011, is a favorite of Obama.
He was not suspended from his military position — even as another general, William (Kip) Ward, was demoted and fined for extravagant spending.
White House spokesman Carney said Tuesday that Obama “has faith in Gen. Allen, believes he’s doing and has done an excellent job.”
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