PERTH -- The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, is under investigation for alleged inappropriate communication with a woman at the center of the sex scandal involving former CIA Director David Petraeus, a senior U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.
The shocking revelation threatens to fell another of the U.S. military's biggest names and suggests that the scandal involving Petraeus - a retired four-star general who had Allen's job in Afghanistan before moving to the CIA last year - could expand much further than previously imagined.
The U.S. official said the FBI uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communications - mostly emails and spanning from 2010 to 2012 - between Allen and Jill Kelley, who has been identified as a long-time friend of the Petraeus family and a Tampa, Florida, volunteer social liaison with military families at MacDill Air Force Base.
It was Kelley's complaints about harassing emails from the woman with whom Petraeus had had an affair, Paula Broadwell, that prompted an FBI investigation, ultimately alerting authorities to Petraeus' involvement with Broadwell. Petraeus resigned from his job on Friday.
It was unclear how Allen knew Kelley, but he was stationed in Tampa as the deputy director of the U.S. military's Central Command for the three years until he took over in Afghanistan in 2011. Petraeus was head of the Tampa-based Central Command from 2008 to 2010.
Asked whether there was concern about the disclosure of classified information, the official, on condition of anonymity, said: "We are concerned about inappropriate communications. We are not going to speculate as to what is contained in these documents."
But even the sheer volume of communication alone could raise questions. Allen and Kelley were exchanging around 30 pages of communication per day, on average. Even if the notes were short, such intense interaction might have consumed a lot of Allen's time.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement given to reporters flying with him to Perth, Australia that he had asked that Allen's nomination to be Commander of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe be delayed "and the president has agreed".
Allen, who is now in Washington, was due to face a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, as was his slated successor in Afghanistan, General Joseph Dunford.
The FBI referred the case to the Pentagon on Sunday and Panetta directed the Defense Department's Inspector General to handle its investigation. Panetta informed the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee during the overnight flight to Australia. The House Armed Services Committee was also notified.
The U.S. defense official said that Allen denied any wrongdoing and that Panetta had opted to keep him in his job while the matter was under review, and until Dunford can be confirmed to replace him - a process that gains urgency given the potentially lengthy review process and the cloud it could cast over the mission in Afghanistan.
"While the matter is under investigation and before the facts are determined, General Allen will remain commander of ISAF," Panetta said, referring to the NATO—led force in Afghanistan.
Only hours earlier, Panetta had said he was reviewing Allen's recommendations on the future U.S. presence in Afghanistan after most troops withdraw by the end of 2014.
Commending Allen's leadership in Afghanistan, Panetta said in his statement: "He is entitled to due process in this matter."
At the same time, he noted that he wanted the Senate to act "promptly" on Dunford's nomination.
The U.S. official said Panetta was informed of the matter involving Allen on Sunday, as he flew to Hawaii, after the Pentagon's top lawyer called Panetta's chief of staff. The White House was informed next.
Pair used old email trick
FBI agents on Monday searched the home of the woman with whom Petraeus had the affair.
According to two federal law enforcement officials, the FBI initially began a criminal investigation of unsigned, harassing emails that were sent, beginning last May, to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley. She and her husband, Scott, were longtime friends of Petraeus and his wife, Holly. FBI agents traced the alleged cyber harassment to Broadwell and during that process discovered she was exchanging intimate messages with a private Gmail account. Further investigation revealed that account belonged to Petraeus, under an alias.
Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teenagers alike, to conceal their email traffic, one of the law enforcement officials said.
Rather than transmitting emails to the other's inbox, they composed at least some messages and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an electronic "dropbox," the official said. Then the other person could log onto the same account and read the draft emails there. This avoids creating an email trail that is easier for outsiders to intercept or trace.
Agents later told Petraeus that Broadwell sent emails warning Kelley to stay away from the general and carrying a threatening tone.
Friends and former staff members of Petraeus told The Associated Press that he has assured them his relationship with Kelley was platonic, although Broadwell apparently saw her as a romantic rival. They said Petraeus was shocked to learn last summer of Broadwell's emails to Kelley.
Petraeus also denied to these associates that he had given Broadwell any sensitive military information.
FBI agents who contacted Petraeus told him that sensitive, possibly classified documents related to Afghanistan were found on her computer, the general's associates said. He assured investigators they did not come from him, and he mused to his associates that they were probably given to her on her reporting trips to Afghanistan by commanders she visited in the field there.
One associate also said Petraeus believes the documents described past operations and had already been declassified, although they might have still been marked "secret."
Broadwell had high security clearances as part of her former job as a reserve Army major in military intelligence. But those clearances are only in effect when a soldier is on active duty, which she was not at the time she researched the Petraeus biography.
The FBI concluded there was no security breach.
Shirtless photos linked to case
But the criminal investigation continued into the emails to Kelley, including whether Petraeus had any hand in them. At that point in late summer, FBI Director Robert Mueller and eventually Attorney General Eric Holder were notified that agents had uncovered what appeared to be an extramarital affair involving Petraeus.
Broadwell and Petraeus have each been questioned by FBI agents twice in recent weeks, with both acknowledging the affair in separate interviews. The FBI's most recent interviews with Broadwell and with Petraeus both occurred during the week of Oct. 29, days before the election, one of the law enforcement officials said. The FBI notified Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, of the investigation on Tuesday, Nov. 6 — Election Day.
U.S. officials had said in recent days that their investigation was largely complete and that prosecutors had determined it was unlikely they would bring charges in that case, which started when Kelley contacted an FBI agent in Tampa about harassing emails from an anonymous source.
That FBI agent, who has not been identified, has also come under scrutiny after it was discovered he had sent shirtless photographs of himself to Kelley, but "long before" this investigation, a law enforcement official told Reuters. The photographs were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
There were at least a couple of members of Congress who heard inklings of the affair before the election. Republican Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington state received a tip from an FBI source that the CIA director was involved in an affair in late October. Reichert arranged for an associate of his source at the FBI to call House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Saturday, Oct. 27, according to Cantor spokesman Rory Cooper.
Cooper told The Associated Press Monday that Cantor notified the FBI's chief of staff of the conversation but did not tell anyone else because he did not know whether the information from a person he didn't know was credible.
"Two weeks ago, you don't want to start spreading something you can't confirm," Cooper said.
The FBI responded by telling Cantor's office that it could not confirm or deny an investigation, but assured the leader's office it was acting to protect national security. Cooper said Cantor believed that if national security was affected, the FBI would, as obligated, inform the congressional intelligence committees and others, including House Speaker John Boehner.
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