David Petraeus To Testify Before Intelligence Committees

Former CIA Director David Petraeus will testify before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees regarding the attack on the consulate in Benghazi:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus has agreed to testify about the Libya terror attack before the House and Senate intelligence committees, Fox News has learned.

Petraeus had originally been scheduled to testify this Thursday on the burgeoning controversy over the deadly Sept. 11 attack.

That appearance was scuttled, though, after the director abruptly resigned over an extramarital affair.

Lawmakers, though, complained that the scandal was no reason they shouldn’t hear from the man at the helm of the CIA when CIA operatives came under attack alongside State Department employees in Benghazi last month.

The logistics of Petraeus’ appearance are still being worked out. But a source close to Petraeus said the former four-star general has contacted the CIA, as well as committees in both the House and Senate, to offer his testimony as the former CIA director.

Right now, it appears that Petraeus’s appearance before the Senate Committee will be at an off-site location while the details for the House testimony have not been worked out completely yet. Both appearances were to be closed-door meetings in any case due to the classified nature of the matters being discussed.

This also tends to put the lie to the accusations of some on the right that the sex scandal was some way to prevent Petraeus from testifying. The General is appearing voluntarily, but he just as easily could have been subpoenaed.

FILED UNDER: Congress, Intelligence, National Security, US Politics, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Geek, Esq. says:

    But, don’t you know that Obama was using this to blackmail Petraeus to cover up Obama’s murder of the four Americans in Benghazi?

    /charleskrauthammerandeveryotherbraindeadfoxnewscontributorandviewer

  2. Argon says:

    Ha!

    The lack of a visible conspiracy is evidence of a coverup.

  3. Tsar Nicholas says:

    The whole thing will be closed door? That can’t be right.

    How is it “classified” whether Petraeus informed the White House from the get-go that it was a terrorist attack? That’s not a national security secret. Either he did or he didn’t. If the White House is going to claim executive privilege over those communications that’s a different story and a separate topic.

    In any event, it’s difficult to envision how this could end well for Petraeus. Already he’s tainted and disposable. Regarding the Benghazi fiasco either he and his agency were numbingly incompetent or numbingly corrupt or both.

  4. legion says:

    I’m already hearing that Eric Holder is getting a second swing at AG as a reward for covering this up… STOP NOTICING, DOUG! YOU’LL RUIN EVERYTHING!

  5. Herb says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    “Regarding the Benghazi fiasco either he and his agency were numbingly incompetent or numbingly corrupt or both.”

    So that’s it? Case closed?

    No need for his testimony then, eh?

  6. grumpy realist says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: Um, there’s probably a lot of other classified stuff that’s going to come out in these meetings. It’s not like Patraeus is going to waltz in, answer one or two questions, and waltz out again. And given it’s pretty much a blown secret that the CIA had a very sizeable footprint in Benghazi, there are undoubtedly going to be a lot of CIA-related questions.

    Or if you want, we could throw the whole investigation open to the public eye and have Patraeus say “I’m sorry, I can’t answer that question because the answer contains confidential information.” You prefer that? Are you interested in Congress actually finding out what went on, or is this going to be another Kabuki huffing-and-puffing schtick for the benefit of the Fox News clowns?