I'd be very skeptical about a Petraeus-Kelly-South Korea deal. I would need much more information about how this was "arranged" through word of mouth only.
Jill Kelley's world: White House visits, meals with generals, and name-dropping emails to Tampa mayor
By William R. Levesque, Richard Danielson and Jessica Vander Velde, Times Staff Writers
Posted: Nov 16, 2012
TAMPA — Her business card is utterly ordinary. No big titles. No hint of connections with the military and political elite. It lists her address, her phone number and her name in elegant script:
"Honorable Jill G. Kelley."
But the outsized portrait of herself that Kelley presents to the world will fit on no card. It's seen in her emails to Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and others. She drops names. She mentions lunch at the White House in a casual aside, one of three visits she has made there in the last six weeks.
The top U.S. general in Afghanistan is calling from overseas to ask for her help. She spends the weekend with the CIA director whose resignation she would inadvertently help set in motion. And always the party invitations.
Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former chief of U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base, said the tawdry sex scandal that Kelley helped trigger is as hard to understand as it is odd. How, he asks, did Kelley – a flamboyant South Tampa socialite – skirt the vetting normally insulating the nation's top generals?
"This is strange," Zinni said Friday. "To me, it's just so bizarre."
Zinni said he respects both ex-CIA director David Petraeus and Gen. John R. Allen, the four-star Marine leader whom the Pentagon is investigating for potentially inappropriate emails he sent to Kelley.
Allen served as deputy and acting commander at CentCom from 2008 to 2011. Petraeus, before becoming top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and then CIA director, headed CentCom before Allen.
Petraeus' affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, was uncovered after Kelley received what she perceived to be threatening emails that she reported to the FBI. Agents traced the emails to Broadwell.
In his day every social invitation and meeting with a civilian was examined by his staff to make sure it would not reflect poorly on the military, said Zinni, a Virginia resident who is now an outside director of the aerospace company BAE Systems.
Zinni said his staff judge advocate — an office providing legal support to a military commander — helped him navigate these sometimes perilous shoals.
Speaking of Kelley's socializing with MacDill brass, Zinni said, "That's something my staff judge advocate would have been on in a heartbeat."
Kelley was anything but subtle about her connections.
"I'm up in DC having dinner tonight with Gen Petraeus & Gen John Allen" Kelley says in one 2012 email to Buckhorn.
After radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge threatened to "deep fat fry" the Koran earlier this year, Kelley told Buckhorn that Allen and Petraeus were seeking her help to get word to Bubba that doing so would endanger lives.
"Gen Allen will be calling me from Afghanistan at 1pm on this — and our next step," Kelley told Buckhorn in a March 7 email.
In recent days, Kelley complained about the constant presence of reporters and photographers outside her house as the scandal broke. She told Buckhorn she was upset that "your police department" released 911 calls she made to Tampa police.
But the 911 tapes were a public record.
"This is a situation of her own making," Buckhorn said Friday. "We're all just bystanders."
•••
Her timing was spectacular.
On Nov. 4, two days before the presidential election and five days before Petraeus visited President Barack Obama at the White House to offer his resignation, Kelley, her twin sister Natalie Khawam, their children and Dr. Scott Kelley went on a tour of the White House.
On Oct. 24, the sisters had lunch in the White House Mess with a White House staffer. That followed a Sept. 28 breakfast between the same three people.
The White House declined to name the staffer, saying his identity would become public in a few months when visitor logs are posted. But an official said the staffer had gotten to know Jill Kelley through connections to MacDill.
The man worked as a civilian lawyer in Afghanistan and got to know military personnel, who invited him to MacDill, where he met Kelley. He now works as a lawyer in the White House.
•••
Zinni didn't have much spare time when he commanded CentCom more than a decade ago. He actually tallied it up when he left the combatant command.
"I was gone more than 70 percent of the time," Zinni said. "And of course I didn't have the same crisis situations CentCom's been dealing with for the last 12 years."
So when Zinni heard news reports that Allen exchanged hundreds, perhaps even thousands of emails with Kelley, he was amazed.
"I don't know where the time came to do all of that," said Zinni, noting that he thinks Allen is one of the military's finest commanders. "It's a full-time job."
He said his biggest concern is that the sex scandal will harm the military's reputation. "It chips away at respect," Zinni said.
Zinni said civilians who love the military often try to get too close and, even though they may have good intentions, they can cause difficulties.
"Sometimes it's hard for them to understand that what they're doing might be inappropriate," he said.
Acknowledging that some of the more aggressive civilians sometimes act like groupies at a Rolling Stones concert, Zinni said with a laugh, "It never happened to me."
Kelley didn't limit her interaction with military personnel to her lavish Bayshore Boulevard home. In October 2010, Kelley jumped out of an airplane with a bunch of commandos.
It was a tandem skydive with a U.S. Special Operations Command's Para Commando parachute team. It's a thrill sometimes offered to select civilians. Miss Florida did it once. No word on where the jump took place. But SOCom, like CentCom, is headquartered at MacDill.
Kelley landed safely.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/jill-kelleys-world-white-house-visits-meals-with-generals-and/1262009
Jill Kelley, honorary consul
From Jill Dougherty, CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent
In a 911 call, aspiring socialite Jill Kelley demands that police in Tampa, Florida, help remove people from her property, describing herself as an “honorary consul general.”
"I am an honorary consul general,” the 911 recording says. “… I have inviolability. They should not be on my property. I don't know if you want to get diplomatic, uh, protection involved as well. It's against the law to cross my property …"
Kelley, it turns out, is an “honorary consul” for the South Korean government, according to the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The official South Korean news agency Yonhap reports that Kelley had "good connections and network and a willingness to develop Korea-U.S. relations, including the free trade agreement between the two nations."
South Korean officials tell CNN that “an honorary consul can generally play a role of promoting trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.”
South Korean Presidential Decree No. 23706 describes the duties as anything from “work(ing) to protect Korean national/resident living abroad” to “promoting interacting of trade, economy, art, science and education.”
The honorary post, however, has no official responsibilities, in spite of Kelley’s attempts to invoke “inviolability.” Yonhap cites a South Korean official as saying that “she will be relieved from the symbolic post if she is found to be problematic.”
Cho Tae-yong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, tells CNN: “Nothing is decided. We are currently observing the situation closely.”
Kelley also had “honorary consul” license plates on her car. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles tells CNN that she has the plates because she is an “honorary consulate.”
But the State Department and the Defense Department stress that Kelley has no official job with the U.S. government. She was strictly a volunteer.
Jennifer Clinton, president of the National Council for International Visitors, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., tells CNN: “From what I understand, she was a volunteer to our member organization in Tampa.”
“What the volunteers do typically is host some of the international visitors for dinner, or they’ll speak to them and provide information about the local community,” she said.
The council specializes in “citizen diplomacy,” which builds “person-to-person relationships ‘one handshake at a time.’ ” The council, in turn, helps implement international visitor programs for the State Department.
But such a “citizen diplomat” designation carries no legal or diplomatic privileges, even if Kelley tried to give that impression.
Kelley was also given the title of “honorary ambassador” by the U.S. Central Command, according to a defense official. The title is, “meaningless” and holds no power and is given for recognition of specific work, according the official.
The title is nothing more than a certificate given by CENTCOM’s Coalition Coordination Center, a group of military representatives from different countries which are working with the United States on terrorism issues. That group, led by a low-level U.S. military officer, recommended Kelley for the title. It is unclear when she was given this title. As a honorary ambassador, Kelley would have duties such as organizing and facilitating unclassified briefings for community leaders to help them better understand the work of the U.S. Central Command and its allies, according to the official.
In a different role, Kelley also hosted many events off-base to honor members of the military and was hosting one when her name became public for her role in the Petraeus scandal, the official said. At that event, Vice Admiral Robert Harward, CENTCOM’s Deputy Commander had stopped by briefly as a guest, according to the official.
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/14/jill-kelley-honorary-consul/
Jill Kelley outraged other military liaisons with her flirty ways
By Jessica Vander Velde and William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writers
November 15, 2012
TAMPA — Mark Rosenthal remembers the first time he saw Jill Kelley and her identical twin in action. It was at a dinner party at then-Gen. David Petraeus' house, and he was appalled.
"They took over the whole conversation," he said. While the man responsible for overseeing two wars nodded politely, Kelley and her sister, Natalie Khawam, talked nonstop about shopping and traveling. "To me it was out of line."
Rosenthal, a retired developer, was a civilian liaison to military leaders at MacDill Air Force Base. It's the same unofficial job that Kelley performed until she triggered an FBI investigation that ultimately exposed Petraeus' affair with his biographer.
Rosenthal told the Tampa Bay Times that he saw Kelley, 37, at numerous events and she was invariably "loud, ostentatious and revealing." She flirted. She hugged and kissed high-ranking military officials. She wore short dresses. And she bombarded generals with chatty emails.
Her personal emails to Marine Gen. John R. Allen, commander of military forces in Afghanistan, which investigators say number in the thousands of pages, have put Allen's nomination to NATO commander on hold.
Rosenthal never saw the emails but said that Gen. Allen's wife had complained about them to Rosenthal's wife. Rosenthal agreed they were out of line and told Kelley so.
"I called her probably three times and told her not to send any more emails," Rosenthal said. The last time was several months ago, he said. He never heard back.
"I thought it was ridiculous. Who the hell is she?" Rosenthal said. "These guys are protecting the world."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/jill-kelley-outraged-other-military-liaisons-with-her-flirty-ways/1261619
She's a very pretenious social climber, and not subtle about it, and she's given to exaggerating her own alleged importance..
Petraeus friends Jill Kelley and Natalie Khawam share financial troubles
By Ben Montgomery and Amy Scherzer, Times Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
TAMPA — In late September, a U.S. Marine Corps four-star general and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency sent letters to a court in Washington, D.C., testifying that a single mom in Tampa named Natalie Khawam was fit to parent her 4-year-old son.
Gen. John R. Allen praised Khawam — the twin sister of Jill Kelley, the woman who sparked an FBI investigation that exposed retired Gen. David Petraeus' affair — for her "maturity, integrity and steadfast commitment to raising her child." Petraeus told the court Khawam "dotes on her son and goes to great lengths — and great expense — to spend quality time with him."
The court had a different opinion.
"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," a judge wrote after a litany of hearings and psychological evaluations. "The court fully expects that Ms. Khawam's pattern of misrepresentations about virtually everything, including the most important aspects of her life, will continue indefinitely."
She was more than $3 million in debt, records show. She had blown through four jobs in five years and sued a former employer for sex harassment. She had had three failed engagements, left her new husband and moved in with her sister where she quickly began hobnobbing with military brass and others in Tampa's elite circles.
What moved the top government brass to go to bat for a woman the court said suffers from "severe" psychological deficits? The answer can be found in Jill Kelley's social climb in the last decade, since she and her surgeon husband moved south from Philadelphia and found a niche hosting lavish parties for military brass from MacDill.
South Tampa's decades-long reputation for genteel hospitality toward the military has transformed over the past several days into a soap opera of sexual misconduct and improper emails that has already cost Petraeus his job and threatens Allen's career as well. Ground zero is not the Pentagon, but a mansion on Bayshore Boulevard inhabited by a family with lavish appetites and gigantic debts.
• • •
In the spring of 2003, the Kelleys hosted a dinner party at Tampa's Palm Restaurant to celebrate their decision to make their adopted city a permanent home. Among the select group of Tampa's business, government and military elite were Marine Lt. Gen. Michael "Rifle" DeLong, then second in command to Gen. Tommy Franks at CentCom, former Mayor Dick Greco and his wife, Linda, and retired Tampa Tribune columnist Tom McEwen.
DeLong's wife, Kathy, recalls meeting Jill Kelley, 37, at a "patriotic function in Tampa."
"They (the twins) could work a room better than any politician," she said. "They're bright, fun, just who you'd want at your party."
The DeLongs began including them at base functions, "and once you're on the list, you're on the list," she said. That friendship extended to Gen. John Abizaid, who ran CentCom from July 2003 to March 2007.
"They really connected because of their shared Lebanese heritage," said DeLong.
Determined to make her footprint, Jill Kelley knocked on doors up and down Bayshore Boulevard, asking homeowners if their house was for sale. She wanted the prestigious address, and she got it. In June 2004, the couple paid $1.5 million for a 4,800-square-foot brick mansion with stately white pillars and a view of Hillsborough Bay, just six miles from MacDill Air Force Base.
Kelley's husband, it seemed, could afford the good life on his salary from Moffitt Cancer Center, where he worked in the department of surgery after a two-year fellowship.
"He was a highly talented guy. Great interpersonal skills,'' said Dr. Richard Karl, the founding medical director at Moffitt, who hired Kelley. "He and his wife were very charming when I knew them back then."
The Kelleys were known for their "extravagant parties; there was always more than you could possibly eat," he said.
Records show the Kelleys created a cancer charity in 2005. According to its 2007 tax return, The Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation's primary purpose was to "conduct research studies into efforts to discover ways to improve the quality of life of terminally ill adult cancer patients." Natalie Khawam was also named as a director of the nonprofit. But of $157,284 raised in revenue that year, meals and entertainment accounted for more than $43,000 in expenses, legal fees more than $25,000, and automotive expenses more than $8,800. According to state corporate records, the group was dissolved in 2007. But as late as February 2010, Jill Kelley solicited contributions for the group to provide a dinner for the homeless. In an email to prospective donors, she asked for " 'in kind' donations (i.e. more food, drinks, banners, decorations)" and noted that her group was a "tax write-off."
In 2008, Kelley moved to Lakeland to start an esophageal cancer/surgical oncology program at Lakeland Regional Medical Center. He established his practice at the 200-physician Watson Clinic in Lakeland, a well-regarded practice that's one of the biggest in the area.
Soon after Petraeus arrived at MacDill in 2008, the Kelleys invited the general and his wife to a small dinner at which they introduced them to noteworthy Tampa residents, said retired Army Col. Steve Boylan, a former Petraeus aide who is acting as his unofficial spokesman.
Petraeus and his wife, Holly, became friends with the Kelleys after that. The friendship continued after the Petraeuses moved to Washington, Boylan said. When the Kelleys would go up to visit her family, the families would see each other.
Lawsuits show the Kelleys were treading water by then, when Scott Kelley was making just the minimum payment on a Visa Signature card that had accumulated a balance over $70,000 and was taking on hundreds of dollars in interest each month. According to a lawsuit filed this year, Kelley defaulted on that card in 2010, the same year Regions bank sued him and his wife over a debt in excess of $250,000. Chase sued for more than $25,000 and Regions Bank filed to foreclose on their Bayshore home. The bank said it was owed more than $1.7 million, and that it had not gotten any payments since Sept. 2009.
They defaulted on more credit cards and the lawsuits stacked up, but they continued to host parties and held tight to their friendship with Petraeus.
It was a friendship between couples, Boylan said, the kind where the families visited each other at Christmas.
"Based on my conversation with David Petraeus, he was very, very clear, very adamant: It is strictly a close friendship that grew out of their time in Tampa and continued when they moved," Boylan said. "No romantic involvement whatsoever."
Noting that he's not speaking for the military, MacDill or CentCom, Boylan said, "In many towns there are people of note who take an interest in the military community and try to support them in various ways."
• • •
When Natalie Khawam moved to her sister's house in Tampa in March 2009, she brought her own baggage, records show. She had moved south from Washington, D.C., with her infant son without her husband's permission. Grayson Wolfe would spend nearly two years fighting in court before he regained custody of his son. Khawam had changed the boy's name to John and didn't correct him when the boy called Scott Kelley "Dad," court records show.
When her husband tried to get custody of their son, Khawam began filing allegations of domestic violence in Tampa, part of "an ever-expanding set of sensational accusations against Mr. Wolfe that are so numerous, so extraordinary, and … so distorted that they defy any common sense view of reality," a judge wrote. She accused Wolfe, a lawyer, of repeatedly putting a gun to her head, pushing and hitting her on a daily basis, ripping the nursing child from her bosom, shaking the child and throwing shoes, dishes and porcelain figurines at her and the child. She accused Wolfe of impregnating her through "non-consensual" sex, but she sent Wolfe an email a month after the pregnancy saying she was "Looking forward to phone sex, with an exclamation point."
Khawam, who worked as a lawyer at the Tampa law firm Cohen, Foster and Romine, sued her employer, accusing the firm's business consultant of sexual harassment. The firm's founder Barry Cohen shot back with a giant stack of evidence to the contrary, accusing Khawam of "fraud." He presented Khawam's bankruptcy filing from April 2012, which showed she owed $3.6 million to creditors, lawyers and others who had loaned her money. The filing showed she owed a lawyer in Rhode Island $300,000, a man in St. Petersburg $600,000 and Scott and Jill Kelley $800,000.
Arnold Levine, another Tampa lawyer, intervened in Cohen's lawsuit because he had yet to be paid for representing Khawam, as well. He represented the Kelleys, too, and says he wasn't paid for that work, either.
But Cohen had trouble serving a subpoena on Khawam. A memo from his process server provided to the Times lays out a strange set of events the morning of Aug. 8. The private investigator noted that four cars were in the driveway, but no one would answer the door. Several people came and went but wouldn't say who they were and wouldn't accept the papers. Then a man stood in front of her car, blocking her exit. Then a black SUV pulled into the driveway, blocking the investigator. Two men climbed out and the investigator called 911. "An officer from TPD appeared by the two men who I was told were FBI agents," she wrote. "The owner of the house came out … screaming that I assaulted her guests and employees."
The officer told the investigator that screaming woman was Jill Kelley.
Petraeus resigned Friday. Allen's nomination to head NATO forces is on hold. An FBI investigation has surfaced emails from Petraeus' lover and biographer to Jill Kelley. The same investigation found that Allen had sent "inappropriate" emails to Kelley.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/petraeus-friends-jill-kelley-and-natalie-khawam-share-financial-troubles/1261383
Because when he publicly supports a person who appears to be unethical, and questionable in her dealings with others, as was the case with this woman, who is Jill Kelley's twin sister, it reflects on him, both in terms of his associations, and his judgment.
To be seen to have been manipulated by the femme fatale's fundamental form is not appropriate for men in high positions and hasn't been since Nero's debacle. It's a raised eyebrow job.
It certainly isn't appropriate for the head of our top spy agency
What notepaper was the letter written on? Did the letter look like one from Bill's average American citizen. Was it delivered to the court with 28 motorcycle out-riders?
Now the restrictions Firefly is trying to sell us would also apply to equally powerful men not in the government?
of publicly vouching for the "maturity" and "integrity" of a person like Natalie Khawam, an individual who seems to strikingly lack both maturity and integrity--it reveals poor judgment on his part, and it's the revelation of such poor judgment on his part that's damaging to him.
True, and I agree. He hurt himself badly, and showed bad judgement on this situation.
What are you trying to say? That my perspective is wrong? Go crawl back into your hole - where you belong. Nobody needs preaching by you of all people
That comment was so nasty
let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Patraeus is a brilliant man who has devoted himself his entire life to the service of the American people. I am so sorry that he is not however a God, is not faultless. all of this hyperventilation over a relatively minor mistake of judgment by this brilliant man who has done so much for us is more than anything an exhibit of what is wrong with America today.
let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Patraeus is a brilliant man who has devoted himself his entire life to the service of the American people. I am so sorry that he is not however a God, is not faultless. all of this hyperventilation over a relatively minor mistake of judgment by this brilliant man who has done so much for us is more than anything an exhibit of what is wrong with America today.
The CIA and the Army and the positions he has held did not grow on a tree.
A Phony Hero for a Phony War
By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
Published: November 16, 2012
FASTIDIOUSNESS is never a good sign in a general officer. Though strutting military peacocks go back to Alexander’s time, our first was MacArthur, who seemed at times to care more about how much gold braid decorated the brim of his cap than he did about how many bodies he left on beachheads across the Pacific. Next came Westmoreland, with his starched fatigues in Vietnam. In our time, Gen. David H. Petraeus has set the bar high. Never has so much beribboned finery decorated a general’s uniform since Al Haig passed through the sally ports of West Point on his way to the White House.
“What’s wrong with a general looking good?” you may wonder. I would propose that every moment a general spends on his uniform jacket is a moment he’s not doing his job, which is supposed to be leading soldiers in combat and winning wars — something we, and our generals, stopped doing about the time that MacArthur gold-braided his way around the stalemated Korean War.
And now comes “Dave” Petraeus, and the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. No matter how good he looked in his biographer-mistress’s book, it doesn’t make up for the fact that we failed to conquer the countries we invaded, and ended up occupying undefeated nations.
The genius of General Petraeus was to recognize early on that the war he had been sent to fight in Iraq wasn’t a real war at all. This is what the public and the news media — lamenting the fall of the brilliant hero undone by a tawdry affair — have failed to see. He wasn’t the military magician portrayed in the press; he was a self-constructed hologram, emitting an aura of preening heroism for the ever eager cameras.
I spent part of the fall of 2003 with General Petraeus and the 101st Airborne Division in and around Mosul, Iraq. One of the first questions I asked him was what his orders had been. Was he ordered to “take Mosul,” I asked. No answer. How about “Find Mosul and report back”? No answer. Finally I asked him if his orders were something along the lines of “Go to Mosul!” He gave me an almost imperceptible nod. It must have been the first time an American combat infantry division had been ordered into battle so casually.
General Petraeus is very, very clever, which is quite different from stating that he is the brilliant tactician he has been described as. He figured if he hadn’t actually been given the mission to “win” the “war” he found himself in, he could at least look good in the meantime. And the truth is he did a lot of good things, like conceiving of the idea of basically buying the loyalties of various factions in Iraq. But they weren’t the kinds of things that win wars. In fact, they were the kinds of things that prolong wars, which for the general had the useful side effect of putting him on ever grander stages so he could be seen doing ever grander things, culminating in his appointment last year as the director of the C.I.A.
The thing he learned to do better than anything else was present the image of The Man You Turn To When Things Get Tough. (Who can forget the Newsweek cover, “Can This Man Save Iraq?” with a photo of General Petraeus looking very Princeton-educated in his Westy-starched fatigues?) He was so good at it that he conned the news media into thinking he was the most remarkable general officer in the last 40 years, and, by playing hard to get, he conned the political establishment into thinking that he could morph into Ike Part Deux and might one day be persuaded to lead a moribund political party back to the White House.
THE problem was that he hadn’t led his own Army to win anything even approximating a victory in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s not just General Petraeus. The fact is that none of our generals have led us to a victory since men like Patton and my grandfather, Lucian King Truscott Jr., stormed the beaches of North Africa and southern France with blood in their eyes and military murder on their minds.
Those generals, in my humble opinion, were nearly psychotic in their drive to kill enemy soldiers and subjugate enemy nations. Thankfully, we will probably never have cause to go back to those blood-soaked days. But we still shouldn’t allow our military establishment to give us one generation after another of imitation generals who pretend to greatness on talk shows and photo spreads, jetting around the world in military-spec business jets.
The generals who won World War II were the kind of men who, as it was said at the time, chewed nails for breakfast, spit tacks at lunch and picked their teeth with their pistol barrels. General Petraeus probably flosses. He didn’t chew nails and spit tacks, but rather challenged privates to push-up contests and went out on five-mile reveille runs with biographers.
His greatest accomplishment was merely personal: he transformed himself from an intellectual nerd into a rock star military man. The problem was that he got so lost among his hangers-on and handlers and roadies and groupies that he finally had his head turned by a West Point babe in a sleeveless top.
If only our political leadership, not to mention the Iraqi and Afghan insurgencies, had known how quickly and hard he would fall over such a petty, ignominious affair. Think of how many tens of thousands of lives could have been saved by ending those conflicts much earlier and sending Dave and his merry band of Doonesbury generals to the showers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/a-phony-hero-for-a-phony-war.html
