The Army says that Charlotte resident Paula Broadwell is not under investigation in connection with her affair with Gen. David Petraeus and her acceptance of highly classified material from the military hero who commanded U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When their relationship became public in 2012, Broadwell was researching and writing a biography about Petraeus, who soon resigned as director of the CIA with public disclosure that he faced an FBI investigation. The Army investigated Petraeus, and has never publicly acknowledged that Broadwell was also facing an inquiry.
However, Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said Tuesday: “There’s no active investigation against Broadwell,” who is still an Army Reserve officer.
Paula Broadwell did not include any of the classified information in her biography of Gen. David Petraeus and was not criminally charged.
The disclosure lends credence to reports that Broadwell, like Petraeus, will escape disciplinary action from the military and is now free of government scrutiny. However, while the Pentagon notified members of Congress that Petraeus would not face disciplinary action, Pentagon officials declined to say Broadwell has been spared punishment.
Jill Westmoreland Rose, the Charlotte-based U.S. attorney, led a criminal investigation into Petraeus’ conduct that resulted in his pleading guilty last March to a misdemeanor charge that he illegally possessed classified information. Petraeus was fined $100,000 and sentenced to two years’ probation.
Broadwell did not include any of the classified information in her biography of Petraeus and was not criminally charged. But in early January, Rose told The Charlotte Observer an Army inquiry into Broadwell’s conduct was still underway.
Last weekend, The Washington Post reported Defense Secretary Ashton Carter had decided against meting out any further punishment to Petraeus, who could have been demoted from his status as a four-star general and faced cuts in his pension.
Neither Broadwell nor her Washington attorney, Robert Muse, would comment.