Veteran F.B.I. Agent Helped Start Petraeus E-Mail Inquiry
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT, SCOTT SHANE and ALAIN DELAQUÉRIÈRE
Published: November 14, 2012
DOVER, Fla. — The F.B.I. agent who helped start the investigation that led to the resignation of David H. Petraeus as C.I.A. director is a “hard-charging” veteran counterterrorism investigator who used his command of French in investigating the foiled “millennium” terrorist plot in 1999, colleagues said on Wednesday.
The agent, Frederick W. Humphries II, 47, took the initial complaint from Jill Kelley, the Tampa, Fla., hostess who was socially active in military circles there, about e-mails she found disturbing that accused her of inappropriately flirtatious behavior toward Mr. Petraeus. The subsequent cyberstalking investigation uncovered an extramarital affair between Mr. Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, his biographer, who agents determined had sent the anonymous e-mails. It also ensnared Gen. John R. Allen, who now commands troops in Afghanistan, after the investigation discovered that he had sent "inappropriate communication" to Ms. Kelley.
Colleagues and news reports described the role of Mr. Humphries, in just his third year at the F.B.I., in building the case against Ahmed Ressam, who was detained as he tried to enter the United States from Canada in 1999 with a plan to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport.
In May 2010, after he had moved to the Tampa field office, Mr. Humphries was attacked outside the gate of MacDill Air Force Base by a disturbed knife-wielding man. He fatally shot the man, and the shooting was later ruled to be an appropriate use of force, according to bureau records and colleagues.
Two former law enforcement colleagues said Mr. Humphries was a solid agent with experience in counterterrorism, conservative political views and a reputation for aggressiveness.
"Fred is a passionate kind of guy," said one former colleague. "He's kind of an obsessive type. If he locked his teeth onto something, he'd be a bulldog."
That description would appear to fit his involvement in the current investigation.
Mr. Humphries passed on Ms. Kelley’s complaint to the cybersquad in the Tampa field office but was not assigned to the case. He was later admonished by supervisors who thought he was trying to insert himself improperly into the investigation.
Convinced that the case was being stalled for political reasons, Mr. Humphries in late October contacted Representative Dave Reichert, a Republican from Washington State, where the F.B.I. agent had worked previously, to inform him of the case. Mr. Reichert put him in touch with the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, who passed the message to the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III.
Lawrence Berger, the general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, who spoke with Mr. Humphries, said that Mr. Humphries only received the information from Ms. Kelley and never played a role in the investigation.
Mr. Berger said that Mr. Humphries and his wife had been “social friends with Ms. Kelley and her husband prior to the day she referred the matter to him.â€
“They always socialized and corresponded,†he said.
Mr. Berger took issue with news media reports that have said his client sent shirtless pictures of himself to Ms. Kelley.
“That picture was sent years before Ms. Kelley contacted him about this, and it was sent as part of a larger context of what I would call social relations in which the families would exchange numerous photos of each other,†Mr. Berger said.
The photo was sent as a “joke†and was of Mr. Humphries “posing with a couple of dummies.†Mr. Berger said the picture was not sexual in nature.
In regard to his client speaking with Mr. Cantor, Mr. Berger declined to address the issue, saying only that his client “had followed F.B.I. protocols.â€
“No one tries to become a whistle-blower,†he said. “Consistent with F.B.I. policy, he referred it to the proper component.â€
A law enforcement official said that disclosing a confidential investigation even to members of Congress could violate F.B.I. rules. But the official said Mr. Humphries’s conduct was under review and that he had not been suspended or punished in any way.
On Wednesday afternoon, a man standing in the driveway of Mr. Humphries’s home who appeared to be him said, in response to questions from a reporter for The New York Times, that his first name was not Fred. The man then walked into the house, closed the front door and did not respond to the door bell’s being rung several times.
Michael S. Schmidt reported from Dover, Scott Shane from Washington, and Alain Delaquérière from New York. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
Timeline: Petraeus Affair
2006
Gen. David H. Petraeus meets Paula Broadwell at a speaking engagement at Harvard University. Soon afterward, she asks him if she can use him as a subject of her doctoral dissertation. In 2010, Ms. Broadwell proposes turning the dissertation into a book.
Nov. 2011
The intimate relationship between Mr. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell begins after he retires from the military in 2011 and about two months after he starts as director of the Central Intelligence Agency that September, according to a close friend of the Petraeus family.
Jan. 24, 2012
Ms. Broadwell's book, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus," is released. Though the book is not officially an authorized biography, it has the hallmarks of one, including extensive interviews with Mr. Petraeus in Afghanistan, often on the six-mile runs he would take with Ms. Broadwell.
June 2012
Jill Kelley, a family friend of David and Holly Petraeus, reports to an acquaintance in the F.B.I. that she has been receiving harassing e-mails, prompting an investigation. The inquiry traces the e-mails to Ms. Broadwell, exposing her extramarital affair with Mr. Petraeus.
July 2012
A close friend of the Petraeus family says the affair ended about four months prior to Mr. Petraeus's resignation. The friend did not want to be identified while discussing personal matters.
Related Article
Sept. 2012
F.B.I. agents interview Ms. Broadwell, who admits having had an affair with Mr. Petraeus and voluntarily allows agents to search her computer.
Related Article
Oct. 31
Representative Eric Cantor's chief of staff, Steve Stombres, calls the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, to tell him that an agent had recently called expressing concerns that the Petraeus investigation had stalled. The agent is an acquaintance of Ms. Kelley's.
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Nov. 8
President Obama, having just returned from Chicago after his re-election, is told of Mr. Petraeus's affair and meets the C.I.A. director at the White House.
Nov. 9
Mr. Petraeus resigns as director of the C.I.A. and cites the affair with Ms. Broadwell, who is identified later in the evening.
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Nov. 11
High-level officials at the F.B.I. and the Justice Department say they were notified in late summer about the affair, but officials did not notify anyone outside the F.B.I. or the Justice Department until the first week of November because the investigation was incomplete.
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Nov. 12
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other officials disclose overnight the investigation into e-mails from Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to Ms. Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., whom Ms. Broadwell saw as a rival for General Petraeus's attentions.
Nov. 13
General Allen's recent nomination to become the supreme allied commander in Europe is delayed at the request of Mr. Panetta pending the investigation's outcome, says Jay Carney, White House spokesman.
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Nov. 14
Frederick W. Humphries II, a veteran F.B.I. counterterrorism investigator, is identified as the agent who took the initial complaint from Ms. Kelley about e-mails she found disturbing that accused her of inappropriately flirtatious behavior toward Mr. Petraeus.
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