Nearly a week ago, David Petraeus life was publicly torn apart as he revealed he had an affair and subsequently stepped down from his role as director of CIA.
Now, after the scandal has dominated the news 24/7, Petraeus has broken his silence, revealing that he is determined to fight to save his marriage of 37 years.
Petraeus, speaking with HLN reporter Kyra Phillips, said he stepped down as he was deeply remorseful about the affair and the only honourable thing left to do was to admit his failings
According to her conversations with Petraeus to HLN on Thursday, Phillips said he was now focusing on repairing the damage inflicted on his family, including his two adult children, Anne and Stephen.
He admitted to her that he had “screwed up terribly” and that he “felt fortunate to have a wife who is far better than he deserves,” Phillips said.
Petraeus also revealed he has not spoken to his mistress, Paula Broadwell, since the scandal emerged and denied he had ever given her classified military documents.
He maintained that his shock resignation on Friday had nothing to do with hearings about the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which he was due to testify at this week.
There was the fiscal cliff, Syria, jobs, the economy, and even environmental climate concerns.
But what every reporter wanted an answer to at the Obama Presidential News Conference held on Wednesday at the White House was the David Petraeus Affair
Obama made his first comments on the widening scandal that led to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus, plus addressed upcoming negotiations with Congress on taxes and spending cuts
“I have no evidence at this point from what I’ve seen that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security,” Obama said at the White House briefing.
Capturing Kristen Stewart making out with married film director Rupert Sanders, was like hitting the jackpot for American magazine Us Weekly, in what is one of the biggest celebrity stories of the year.
But how did they land their hands on these exclusive and explosive photos? Here is the inside scoop on how these scandalous pictures came to fruition….
Us Weekly received a tip from someone who worked on the set of Snow White and the Huntsman that they suspected that something romantically was going on with Stewart and Sanders, and that the rumors persisted after filming and the promotional tour came to an end.
On the weekend of July 14, the mag assigned four photographers from Fame/Flynet to sit on Stewart in the hope something would materialized.
On Tuesday July 17, the paps struck gold when Stewart left the house she shared with Pattinson and went to meet Sanders (she was driving erratically, says one of the paps)….and the rest became tabloid history.
Two important pieces of information to know: Three days after the July 17 hook up, Stewart was pumping gas in Los Feliz when she spotted the paps, she went up to them and pleaded with them to show her what they had (there are actually photos of this that will surface). When the paps refused and drove off, Stewart jumped in the car and followed them, urging them again to let her see what they had of her on film.
At this point, Stewart knew the game was up.
And, lastly, we haven’t seen all the photos– there are still more to surface.
It’s a scandal that has all the makings of a blockbuster movie: Sex, drugs, and….escorts.
Today we revealed more photos of Dania Londono Suarez, the woman who found herself on the front page of every publication around the world, after she was identified as the person who essentially brought down Obama’s Secret Service after a wild night out in Columbia.
Is she too blame? Hardly? The big rich fat cats whose wallets were bulging with American dollars, who were married, got their just deserts. And, it was down to the lone ranger, who refused to pay the standard rate, whose blame for the most embarrassing Secret Service Scandal in history rests firmly on his shoulders.
Tomorrow, we will examine this more, but we found this article below rather bewildering…. we would like to know what you think.
(CNN) – So a bunch of guys away from home, who should know better, take off their wedding rings, mix testosterone with alcohol and hookers — an appalling combination — argue over the price of a lady’s company and, all of a sudden, the entire culture of the U.S. Secret Service is thrown into question.
All of a sudden, this is the worst disaster for the Secret Service, ever. All of a sudden, the Secret Service is out of control. All of a sudden, anything might have happened, like one of the 11 agents could have been blackmailed to open a door for a sniper or to look the other way as a bomb-carrying terrorist walks up to the president.
All of a sudden, the men and women of the Secret Service are no longer the best and the brightest. Especially the men.
All of a sudden… Stop!
It’s time for a reality check.
The 11 agents who were sent home from Colombia in disgrace before the president even left Washington were there in a support role. Whether they were manning metal detectors or handling dogs that sweep rooms, whether they were part of a sniper team or standing post at 3 a.m. along a barricaded street, they were not members of the Presidential Protective Division (PPD). They were not on the president’s shoulder. At no time was the president’s security in danger.
What damage did their stupidity do? Obviously, a lot to their personal lives, their marriages and their careers. Obviously, also, a lot to the image and reputation of the Secret Service.
The legislation creating the Secret Service was sitting on Abraham Lincoln’s desk, waiting to be signed, on April 15, 1865, the night he was assassinated. In those days, the Secret Service was housed inside the Treasury Department, and its job was to protect and defend the currency and monetary instruments of the United States. It didn’t get the supplementary duty of protecting the president and vice president until after William McKinley was assassinated in 1901.
No agent I have ever met was hired for his sense of humor. These are very serious men and women who do their jobs very seriously.
They have always been the best and the brightest.
And they still are.
You can see it in the way they stand a little taller and walk with a different gait than others in law enforcement. You can see it in their pride. Frankly, I can’t think of any other law enforcement agency where pride counts as much as it does with the Secret Service. It’s the same pride that is always so visible with the U.S. Marines.
That’s the reason why this scandal matters. Not because someone thinks the agency is out of control. It’s not. Not because of wildly exaggerated threats of blackmail. No, Chicken Little, the sky is not falling. It matters because the idiotic actions of 11 agents who forgot who they are and what their badge stands for deeply affects every active duty agent and tens of thousands of retired agents. Pride has been dented. And agents are, rightly, furious.
These are men and women who have made — and continue to make — huge personal sacrifices for their share in that pride. The divorce rate among agents is high. That’s not because they party with hookers, but because for the privilege of wearing that special five starred badge, they abandon any thoughts of their time being their own. They miss birthdays and Christmas, Little League games, graduations, school plays, first teeth, first steps, first words.
When the president travels, especially overseas, it’s a flying circus with 800-1,000 people, limousines, helicopters, communications equipment, big guns, small guns, sometimes food, and often 20-30 planes.
As an integral part of this, Secret Service agents have two main concerns: To create and to maintain a tightly controlled environment in which the president can do his job safely and to bring everyone home at night.
Anything short of that is, the way the Secret Service defines the word, failure.
Just as those two things are true, so are these: What happened with those 11 agents is defined as stupidity. They will be dealt with quickly by the Secret Service. The president’s opponents will pretend that there are political ramifications and invent whatever capital out of this that they can to embarrass the president. It will take a long time before pride is fully restored, and, if this ever happens again, it will definitely not be soon.
CNN Editor’s note: Jeffrey Robinson is the co-author of ”Standing Next to History – An Agent’s Life in the Secret Service,” the autobiography of former United States Secret Service Special Agent, Joseph Petro. (St. Martins/Thomas Dunne Books. Available in both Kindle and Nook.) Follow him on Twitter
We’ve just written extensively about Dania Londono Suarez, the high-class escort, who unwittingly triggered the Secret Service Sex Scandal, and how she has fled her tiny two room in apartment in Cartagena.
But we just stumbled upon her dating profile. Take a look at the woman who is bringing the Secret Service to their knees (no pun intended there).
Here is the first look at the bikini-clad escort, known only as Dania, who is the women at the centre of the Secret Service controversy after her cheapskate date tried to rip her off by paying $30 for her services and she got the cops involved.
The mom-of-one caused a ruckus, demanding her full payment and got the police got involved. Word then reached the US Embassy and with it, begun the downfall of 11 (married) agents and their sordid tales are just coming to light.
The photos came as the mother of a 9-year-old son, broke her silence.
Speaking about the tawdry episode that has seen three agents ousted from their posts after a wild night of partying in Cartagena last week, the 24-year-old high-end escort claims she was offered $30 – a fraction of her $800 fee – for a night with one of the men..
The New York Daily News were the first to get their hands on these photos, and it is sure to add more fuel to this rapidly growing fire.
The big question, is: Who was the dumbass agent that refused to cough up the money? That has to be next on the news agenda.
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