Who is Jill Kelly? And David Petraeus extramarital affair update
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David Petraeus posed for a photo at the Gasparilla parade with Dr. Scott Kelley at the Kelleys’ home. Petraeus’ wife, Holly, also attended.
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The extramarital affair that brought down David Petraeus' celebrated career last week raised many questions. Among them: when exactly the affair began, how the FBI stumbled upon the information and who was told about it. Here's a timeline of events, according to officials involved in the investigation:
Spring 2006: Paula Broadwell meets Petraeus at Harvard University, where she is a graduate student. Petraeus is a lieutenant general working on a manual about counterinsurgency and is invited to give a speech about his experiences in Iraq.
January 2007: The Senate confirms Petraeus as the commanding general for U.S. troops in Iraq.
2008: Broadwell initiates a case study of Petraeus' leadership. On a visit to Washington, Petraeus invites Broadwell to join him and his team for a run along the Potomac River.
October 2008: Petraeus is named commander of U.S. Central Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, where Jill Kelley and her husband attend social events alongside the area's military elite.
June 30, 2010: The Senate confirms Petraeus as the new commander for war in Afghanistan. Over the next year, Broadwell expands her research of Petraeus into an authorized biography. She makes multiple trips to Afghanistan and is given unprecedented access to Petraeus and his commanders.
Sept. 6, 2011: Petraeus is sworn in as CIA director with his wife, Holly, by his side. Broadwell keeps in contact with Petraeus and is later invited to his office for events, including a meeting with actor Angelina Jolie.
November 2011: Petraeus begins an extramarital affair with Broadwell, according to retired Army Col. Steve Boylan.
Jan. 24, 2012: Broadwell's biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, is released.
Jan. 30: In an interview with her hometown paper, the Bismarck Tribune, Broadwell describes Petraeus as an inspirational figure who always takes care of his subordinates.
May: In Tampa, Jill Kelley, right, starts receiving harassing emails. The FBI begins investigating.
Summer 2012: FBI agents determine that the email trail leads to Broadwell. They come across a private Gmail account using an alias name that belongs to Petraeus. Emails between Petraeus and Broadwell lead agents to believe the two are having an affair. FBI director Robert Mueller is notified. At some point during the investigation, the FBI interviews Petraeus and Broadwell.
July: The affair between Petraeus and Broadwell ends, according to Petraeus' friend Boylan.
Late summer: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is notified. By this time, the FBI has long since concluded there was no national security breach, but continues investigating whether Petraeus had any role in the harassing emails sent to Kelley.
Oct. 27: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., gets a call from an FBI employee notifying him of the affair. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., arranges the call after receiving a tip from another FBI official.
The week of Oct. 29: Petraeus and Broadwell, right, are both interviewed for a second time by the FBI. By this point, both have acknowledged the affair to the FBI.
Oct. 31: Cantor's chief of staff calls the FBI chief of staff to inform him of the call.
Nov. 6: As Americans cast their ballots on Election Day, the Justice Department informs director of national intelligence James Clapper of the investigation. Clapper calls Petraeus and urges him to resign.
Nov. 7: The White House is first notified about the affair involving Petraeus. The retired general turns 60.
Nov. 8: President Barack Obama, having returned from Chicago, is told of the affair. Petraeus meets with Obama at the White House and asks to resign.
Nov. 9: Obama accepts Petraeus' resignation. News of the resignation breaks before Congress is briefed. Broadwell's husband emails guests to cancel her 40th birthday party, scheduled for that weekend. By the evening, Broadwell has been publicly identified.
Nov. 10: Broadwell's book, ranked 76,792 on Amazon the day before, jumps to 111.
Nov. 11: Lawmakers complain in televised interviews that the FBI didn't alert them sooner to the investigation. Kelley's identity is revealed by the Associated Press, and she issues a statement asking for privacy.
Petraeus friend Jill Kelley found place hosting military parties
TAMPA — When Dr. Scott T. Kelley moved from the Northeast to become one of Moffitt Cancer Center's most distinct specialists, his wife, Jill, threw herself into the South Tampa social scene. She volunteered for committees to organize galas and fashion shows benefiting the American Red Cross and the Tampa Museum of Art. But she didn't seem to find her calling in those circles. Then she focused her efforts on helping the military.
Just miles from her Bayshore Boulevard home, representatives from scores of nations that make up the military coalition united to fight terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks were stationed at MacDill Air Force Base. Before long, the Kelley mansion became the place to be seen for coalition officers. Gen. David Petraeus, leader of U.S. Central Command at MacDill, marked his first celebration of the Gasparilla pirate parade on the Kelleys' lawn.
"Jill was such an awesome client," said Linda Baldwin, the owner of Events by Amore, which catered that party. "Did so much for the military, fabulous mother and amazing wife; can't say enough nice things about her. She never spared anything for the military. It was all about them." Just three months after they posed with David and Holly Petraeus, strands of Gasparilla beads hanging from their necks, the Kelleys were hit with a foreclosure lawsuit. The suit, brought by Central Bank against the Kelleys and Kelly Land Holdings, centered on a three-story office building at 300 E Madison St. in downtown Tampa. Court records show they owed the bank nearly $2.2 million, including attorney fees. In 2011, a judge ordered the property to be put up for sale. In the decade since the Kelleys arrived from Pennsylvania, it proved one of several examples of court cases seeking payment of real estate and credit card debts intermingling with catered parties and A-list guests as the couple sought to establish themselves in Tampa.
And now the Kelleys have a national scandal to contend with — one that is quickly growing more and more curious.
Who is Jill Kelley?
Over the summer, Jill Kelley, 37, started getting anonymous emails. The half dozen or so messages told her to stop behavior that was being interpreted as too friendly toward Petraeus — although they did not use his name.
The Washington Post, citing anonymous law enforcement sources, said the emails indicated Petraeus' secret paramour Paula Broadwell felt jealous. Kelley contacted a friend in the local FBI office, who took her concerns to the bureau, the Associated Press reported.
A spokesman for the Tampa FBI office did not return phone or email messages Monday.
The agent and friend, whose name has not been made public, was subsequently barred from the investigation because of superiors' concerns that he had become obsessed with the case, the Wall Street Journal reported late Monday, citing anonymous sources.
The newspaper reported there were allegations that the agent had once sent shirtless pictures of himself to Jill Kelley. The paper reported the agent is now under internal affairs review.
Dr. Kelley was a get for Moffitt.
He graduated from Dartmouth College and Columbia University. He is one of the world's few doctors who specialize in a particular type of minimally invasive surgery to cure cancer of the esophagus and has been featured on the cover of the center's magazine.
Friends say he is Jill Kelley's favorite topic of conversation — she even sometimes refers to him as "Dr. Kelley."
Since the Kelleys have been in Tampa, records show, one or both have been subjects of lawsuits nine times — including an $11,000 judgment against them that originated in Pennsylvania.
Ongoing cases, the court records show, include an indebtedness case from Chase Bank; a foreclosure case from Regions Bank; and a credit card case from FIA Card Services.
Not long after the couple arrived in Tampa, Jill Kelley and her identical twin sister, Natalie Khawam, appeared for a taping of the Food Network's reality show, Food Fight.
The segment featured sibling rivalry, with the twins cooking off against two brothers.
A food show, though, was not out of the realm for the sisters.
Growing up in Philadelphia, the sisters were among four children of a couple who had immigrated from Jounieh, Lebanon, in the mid-1970s. The family owned a Middle Eastern restaurant in Philadelphia called Sahara.
The year after the sisters appeared for the show's taping, the Kelleys moved in the Bayshore Boulevardhome they had bought for about $1.5 million, property records show. The colonial-style home of nearly 5,000 square feet has white columns on the front facade. A portrait painting of the Kelleys hangs in the living room. Dr. Kelley has since left Moffitt. On June 1, 2008, he joined the Watson Clinic in Lakeland. Jill Kelley established a name for herself as an extravagant hostess with a military guest list. She functions as an unpaid social liaison for the Air Force base in South Tampa. All or nearly all of her parties include members of the military coalition. During Gasparilla earlier this year, the head of the coalition appeared at the couple's heavily guarded home. Civilian guests have included David Laxer, owner of Bern's Steakhouse, Ron Vaughn, president of the University of Tampa, Pam Bondi, the state attorney general, and Dick Greco, a former Tampa mayor. As news of her role in the Petraeus scandal broke Sunday, Jill Kelley was throwing a birthday party for one of her daughters. A media crush waited at the curb. A sole local TV crew remained Monday morning.
By then, the Kelleys had turned to national experts for help.
They hired Abbe Lowell, a Washington lawyer who has represented clients such as former presidential candidate John Edwards and lobbyist Jack Abramoff. And the couple are employing crisis PR person Judy Smith, who has represented big names like Monica Lewinsky, Michael Vick and Kobe Bryant.
