FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2009 file photo, Gen. David Petraeus, commander U.S. Central Command, left, stands with his wife Holly before the NFL Super Bowl XLIII football game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers in Tampa, Fla. Gen. Petraeus, the retired four-star general who led the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2009 file photo, Gen. David Petraeus, commander U.S. Central Command, left, stands with his wife Holly before the NFL Super Bowl XLIII football game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers in Tampa, Fla. Gen. Petraeus, the retired four-star general who led the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
In the frame grab from C-SPAN Book TV video taken Feb. 6, 2012, author Paula Broadwell speaks to an audience about the book she co-authored, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus," at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington. The scandal that brought down CIA Director David Petraeus started with harassing emails sent by his biographer and paramour, Broadwell, to another woman, and eventually led the FBI to discover he was having an affair, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012. Petraeus quit Friday, Nov. 9, after acknowledging an extramarital relationship. (AP Photo/C-SPAN Book TV)
FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2011 file photo, former Commander of International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Gen. Davis Petraeus, standing with his wife Holly, participates in an armed forces farewell tribute and retirement ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va. Gen. Petraeus, the retired four-star general who led the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
In this Jan. 15, 2012 photo, Paula Broadwell, author of the David Petraeus biography "All In," poses for photos in Charlotte, N.C. Petraeus, the retired four-star general renowned for taking charge of the military campaigns in Iraq and then Afghanistan, abruptly resigned Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 as director of the CIA, admitting to an extramarital affair. Petraeus carried on the affair with Broadwell, according to several U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation. (AP Photo/The Charlotte Observer, T. Ortega Gaines) LOCAL TV OUT (WSOC, WBTV, WCNC, WCCB); LOCAL PRINT OUT (CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL, CREATIVE LOAFLING, CHARLOTTE WEEKLY, MECHLENBURG TIMES, CHARLOTTE MAGAZINE, CHARLOTTE PARENTS) LOCAL RADIO OUT (WBT)
FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2011 file photo, former Commander of International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan Gen. Davis Petraeus kisses his wife Holly during an armed forces farewell tribute and retirement ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va. Gen. Petraeus, the retired four-star general who led the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned Friday, Nov. 9, 2012 as director of the CIA after admitting he had an extramarital affair. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The career of David Petraeus, the CIA director and renowned general, was derailed by allegedly vicious emails his paramour sent to another woman. Now the CIA, FBI and White House face questions from Congress about Petraeus' love life and how his emails came under investigation.
Petraeus quit his post Friday after acknowledging an extramarital relationship.
He had been scheduled to appear before congressional intelligence committees on Thursday to testify on what the CIA knew and what it told the White House before, during and after the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
It now falls to the CIA's deputy director, Michael Morell, to answer lawmakers' questions about the attack on the U.S. Consulate and CIA base.
Morell and the FBI's deputy director, Sean Joyce, also will be asked for answers about who they informed and when, in meetings with congressional intelligence committee leaders Wednesday, according to a senior intelligence committee aide.
The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, was told by the Justice Department of the Petraeus investigation on election night, and then called Petraeus and urged him to resign, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
But the FBI did not inform the committees that oversee the CIA until Friday, after the news about Petraeus broke.
FBI officials have explained that the committees weren't informed, one official said, because the matter started as a criminal investigation into harassing emails sent by Petraeus' biographer, Paula Broadwell, a 40-year-old graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and an Army Reserve officer, to another woman.
The identity of the other woman and her connection with Broadwell were not immediately known, but that probe led agents to Broadwell's email, which uncovered the relationship with Petraeus, a 60-year-old retired four-star general, according to an official who spoke to The Associated Press on Saturday.
Concerned that the emails he exchanged with Broadwell raised the possibility of a security breach, the FBI brought the matter up with Petraeus directly, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.
Petraeus decided to quit, though he was breaking no laws by having an affair, officials said.
"He decided he needed to come clean with the American people," said Steve Boylan, a retired army officer and former Petraeus spokesman who talked with him Saturday.
In a phone call, Petraeus lamented the damage he'd done to his "wonderful family" and the hurt he'd caused his wife, Boylan said. Petraeus has been married for 38 years to Holly Petraeus.
"He screwed up, he knows he screwed up, now he's got to try to get past this with his family and heal," said Boylan.
Broadwell interviewed the general and his close associates intensively for more than a year to produce the best-selling biography, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus," which was written with Vernon Loeb, a Washington Post editor, and published in January.
The CIA did not comment on the identity of the woman with whom Petraeus was involved.
Broadwell is married with two young sons. She has not responded to multiple emails and phone messages. She'd planned to celebrate her 40th birthday in Washington this weekend, with many reporters invited. Her husband emailed guests to cancel the party.
CIA officers long had expressed concern about Broadwell's unprecedented access to the director. She frequently visited the spy agency's headquarters in Langley, Va., to meet Petraeus in his office, accompanied him on morning runs around the CIA grounds and often attended public functions as his guest, according to two former intelligence officials.
Petraeus' staff when he was overseeing the war in Afghanistan similarly had been concerned about the time she spent with their boss.
In the preface to her book, Broadwell said she first met Petraeus in the spring of 2006 while she was a graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
___
Associated Press writer Adam Goldman contributed to this report.
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