UNIFORM MADNESS: Gens. John Allen (above left) and David Petraeus were convinced to write letters to a Florida court on behalf of Natalie Khawam, sister of their friend Jill Kelley. (Reuters)
Jill Kelley
UNIFORM MADNESS: Gens. John Allen (above left) and David Petraeus were convinced to write letters to a Florida court on behalf of Natalie Khawam (right), sister of their friend Jill Kelley (left). (
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Gomer Pyle wasn’t this big of a screw-up.
Former Gen. David Petraeus and his successor made a four-star farce of the military when they helped a woman whom a judge called mentally unstable in her bitter custody battle — less than two weeks after an ambassador was murdered in Libya, court records reveal.
Petraeus, head of the CIA during the Sept. 11 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, and Gen. John Allen, the top military commander in Afghanistan, each wrote glowing letters to a judge on behalf of Natalie Khawam. And both included their lofty title — General.
‘GENERAL’ MAYHEM AS SCANDAL WIDENS
“Natalie clearly dotes on her son and goes to great lengths — and great expense — to spend quality time with him,” Petraeus gushed in his Sept. 20 letter, filed nine days after Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed at the consulate.
He wrote that he and his wife, Holly — whom he betrayed by having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell — have known Khawam for about three years.
“We have, on many occasions, observed Natalie and her son . . . including when we hosted them . . . for Christmas dinner this past year,’’ he wrote.
“In each case, we have seen a very loving relationship.”
Allen was similarly sympathetic in his Sept. 22 letter to the court, saying, “Natalie clearly loves [her son] John and cherishes each and every opportunity she has to spend time with him.”
Khawam and her twin sister, Jill Kelley, have become focal points of the bizarre scandal that forced the married Petraeus to resign last week and has the two decorated commanders looking like hapless characters from “F Troop.”
Kelley, 37, received a series of harassing e-mails from Broadwell, 40, who had a months-long affair with Petraeus, 60, the then-CIA boss. Her complaints sparked an FBI probe, which she later asked to have dropped, The Wall Street Journal said.
Court letters from Gens. Allen and Petraeus
Broadwell, who was spotted for the first time yesterday — at her brother’s DC home — since the scandal broke Friday, apparently believed Petraeus was getting too cozy with Kelley — the “social liaison” for a major military base near her home in Tampa, Fla.
Broadwell, a mother of two and West Point alumna, e-mailed Allen — writing under the pseudonym KelleyPatrol — and called Kelley a “seductress,” the Journal reported.
Allen, 58, was thrust into the expanding spotlight Monday night, when it was revealed that the married general exchanged hundreds of possibly “inappropriate” e-mails with Kelley.
He affectionately called Kelley “sweetheart,” the Journal said.
Fox News quoted one source as saying the exchanges were “equivalent of phone sex over e-mail.”
The FBI investigation has put his nomination to be commander of NATO in Europe on hold.
Still, President Obama has “faith” in Allen to remain in command in Afghanistan, a White House spokesman said yesterday.
Petraeus and Allen both took time out from their duties in the war on terror to assist Khawam, whom the judge in her custody battle branded “a psychologically unstable person.”
She is seeking more visitation time with her 4-year-old son with fewer restrictions, which the judge imposed in his ruling last year in favor of her estranged husband, Grayson Wolfe.
Khawam’s slew of bogus domestic-violence allegations against Wolfe were found by a shrink to be “part of an ever-expanding set of sensational accusations . . . that are so numerous, so extraordinary and [so] distorted that they defy any common-sense view of reality,” records show.
Khawam’s former boss, Tampa lawyer Barry Cohen, told The Post last night that she frequently mentioned Petraeus when she worked for him. “She would throw his name around — he was always [at Khawam’s] for dinner,” he said.
He laughed when he was asked his impressions of Khawam’s twin, who with her husband also socialized with Petraeus.
“Pretty insecure,” Cohen said of Kelley. “Trying to be somebody she wasn’t.”
Bankruptcy records show that Khawam, a lawyer, has the same syndrome. She has hobnobbed with political bigwigs, including US Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 presidential nominee whom Obama is now considering for secretary of defense.
Kerry and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) met Khawam at social events and fund-raisers she and her son attended with her boyfriend — Providence, RI, lawyer, lobbyist and Democratic fund-raiser Gerald Harrington, the pols’ spokesmen said.
Whitehouse even penned a letter to Harrington saying he was “excited to hear that you and John may be coming to the Family Clambake.”Harrington, meanwhile, is among many Khawam acquaintances who lent her large sums of money. Her federal bankruptcy filing last April lists $3.6 million in liabilities against just less than $350,000 in assets — including $300,000 borrowed from Harrington, who did not return a request for comment.
The letter was intended to show Khawam’s custody judge she had a legitimate reason to take the boy to Rhode Island.
She also listed an $800,000 loan from her sister and her sister’s surgeon husband, Scott Kelley, and a $600,000 personal loan from St. Petersburg, Fla., entrepreneur Michael Boone. He refused to comment, but Khawam’s neighbor said the two are dating.
Additional reporting by Josh Margolin and Reuven Fenton