Gomer Pyle wasn’t this big of a screw-up.
Former Gen. David Petraeus and his successor made a four-star farce of the military when they helped a woman whom a judge called mentally unstable in her bitter custody battle — less than two weeks after an ambassador was murdered in Libya, court records reveal.
Petraeus, head of the CIA during the Sept. 11 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, and Gen. John Allen, the top military commander in Afghanistan, each wrote glowing letters to a judge on behalf of Natalie Khawam. And both included their lofty title — General.
Reuters
UNIFORM MADNESS: Gens. John Allen (above left) and David Petraeus were convinced to write letters to a Florida court on behalf of Natalie Khawam, sister of their friend Jill Kelley.
'GENERAL' MAYHEM AS SCANDAL WIDENS
“Natalie clearly dotes on her son and goes to great lengths — and great expense — to spend quality time with him,” Petraeus gushed in his Sept. 20 letter, filed nine days after Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed at the consulate.
He wrote that he and his wife, Holly — whom he betrayed by having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell — have known Khawam for about three years.
“We have, on many occasions, observed Natalie and her son . . . including when we hosted them . . . for Christmas dinner this past year,’’ he wrote.
“In each case, we have seen a very loving relationship.”
Allen was similarly sympathetic in his Sept. 22 letter to the court, saying, “Natalie clearly loves [her son] John and cherishes each and every opportunity she has to spend time with him.”
Khawam and her twin sister, Jill Kelley, have become focal points of the bizarre scandal that forced the married Petraeus to resign last week and has the two decorated commanders looking like hapless characters from “F Troop.”
Kelley, 37, received a series of harassing e-mails from Broadwell, 40, who had a months-long affair with Petraeus, 60, the then-CIA boss. Her complaints sparked an FBI probe, which she later asked to have dropped, The Wall Street Journal said.
Court lettes from Gens. Allen and Petraeus
Petraeus & Allen dallied as furor over Benghazi raged
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Petraeus & Allen dallied as furor over Benghazi raged
