if you look at leon panetta, when he was running the cia, when he went to the cia people asked what kind of background did he have in the intelligence community? it wasn't particularly deep. he was in congress who had been a white house chief of staff, kind of an organization man. you had other cia directors that come up the ranks and they're real spy masters. petraeus came from the military. there has been a recent trend of senior intelligence officials nts government having military background. so that actually -- petraeus was a part of that wave of people who bring -- because we are having this merger in military and intelligence now, we identify threats and trouble spots and frequently we wind up sending special forces or drones our using targeted military actions to address threats. you could see someone else come from the military. again, to return to this point briefly that i made earlier, the cia is increasingly being identified by its reliance on drones and drone strikes and that kind of military side of things. petraeus was steering it very much in that direction, so i guess if

fox was told that the cia director had a very important meeting at a cia headquarter, people were coming in from out of town. a couple of hours before, it was cancelled abruptly. we know that on thursday, he went to the white house and talked specifically to the president about resigning from his position, for personal reasons. then on friday, that resignation was accepted by the president. so it's really been a chain of events over the last 48 hours. >> greta: do we have any information whether or not the white house or anyone else learned about this before wrftr yesterday -- wednesday? >> the public statement is that they learned about it wednesday. but hia conversation with someone who is very familiar with the notification process to capitol hill. and what we were told is that once someone of the director's stature comes even within the scope of an fbi investigation, not the subject, but the scope, there has to be immediate briefings to the ranking members and the chairman of the house and senate intelligence committees. we are not clear, at least tonight, that that happened. >> gret

the head of the cia resigning. admitting in a letter he cheated on his wife. >> at this point it seems to me that there is a real personal tragedy involving general petraeus. >> harris: tonight, reaction from the president, what it means for american intelligence. and the potential effect on the investigation into the benghazi attack. i'm harris faulkner in tonight for shepard smith. fox news has learned an fbi investigation exposed the affair. sources say agents were investigating a bigger case that led them to the other woman. the woman wrote a book about general petraeus called on in. he broke the news to the president yesterday face to face at the white house asking to resign as cia director for what he called personal reasons. today general petraeus told cia staffers, quote: after being married for over 37 years i showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in extramarital affair. such behavior is unacceptable. both as a husband and a leader of the organization such as ours. this afternoon, president obama grac

specifically the cia. he thought about keeping the union form on and going to the cia. he proposed that to second gats having liked the idea because he served there before. >> rose: as director. >> right exactly. he took it back to the president and the president and petraeus didn't talk about it until march and the president said he would like the idea but you have to take off the uniform. he felt that was the best place for him. he felt he wouldn't get the chair position. >> rose: why did he think that. >> he wasn't interested in the chairman of chief at the army position or the other position gates offered which was supreme allied commander of europe. those appealed to him earlier but somehow he felt that he, they are prestiges positions but felt he had been there kind of done that. in some sense he was frustration with coalition management even though he's good at it and he felt that nato's not going to change all these countries are drawing down on their defense budgets. he prides himself on being a war fighter as much as i call him a professor. he really wanted to

the cia deies ithad aay prisoners. the cia has not had the attentn of authorities since january 209, when executive order 13491 was issued. any uggestion that the agency is still in the deention business is uninformed and baseless. e paaeus resignation comes at a time when the administration is facing questions about the attacks and benghazi. the affair had been suspected among patraeus is in a circle. three separate intelligence sources say the president's top counter-terrorism adviser, john brennan, was told about the affair in the summer of 2011. the white house denies this. lou: thank you. jennifer griffin, fox is national security correspondent. david patraeus will not a fear of for congress to answer congressional cuts -- questions aut bnghazi. lawmakers still want to hear from him at some point. they also want to know why they were not bried by the fbi before news of the affair broke friday. fox news chief inteigence correspondent atharine heritage has the latest on that ankle. >> although the investigation bega

or for someone in the cia. that remains to be seen. i'm a very strong believer that we need a strong and effective co vert action capability and intelligence capability, and it's a sad thing if it in any way diminishes those capabilities. >> there is a conspiracy theory at the moment that this may all be linked to the fact that general petraeus was due to appear before congress and testify about the attack in benghazi in the next few days. there is an ap report that came out today which says it was 14 hours before any american military arrived on the scene. which seems, in this day and age, absolutely astonishing. could it be that he's put on an affair to stop a wider scandal? >> i doubt that. we'll get to the bottom of benghazi. why was security not improved in the month leading up to the attack? what actually happened during the attack on why it took so long for military support to get there, and to make of the administration's varying stories about what actually happened there. we will get to the bottom of t

agents or 100 cia agents. the country was unsecure, the country was in the middle of a violent revolution. he had been in the area a long time. new exactly what a really bad situation looked like, could recognize it, and really had no business being there. so there was some complicity at the state department about that. there was no reason for him to be there. you couldn't generate the kinds of forces that you woot require to defend the place in short order given a rotten situation that was taking place. there's a lot of blame going around. you could argue that the cia should have known this was a really rotten situation and could have sent a lot more agents there. if i are were the director of the cia i would argue i have no business sending more agents down there at a time when what you needed was for the ambassador to get the heck out of there. >> thank you all. stay with us. much more ahead. >>> final for the your business entrepreneurs of the week. kathleen bailey and susan kad are encouraging customers t

rieling the cia, the kgb. t the israeli service to which the cuban service was modeled on ths israel service. neeng small countries at danger urgentlily needing the cubanurnt revolution like the israel government when it was formed if 1948 urge gently needing to defend themselves the israel against their neighbors. th the cuban revolution against the united states. the eisenhower administration about kennedy administration were determined to rid cuba of castro. that was the bay of pigs in 1961, the kennedy administratioo humiliated by castro because he won. they resorted to a whole series, years of very e will elaborate >>ans and assassination plots to kill castro. kennedy did not want to in the second term if castro were -- one of the interesting questions. one of the most interesting personalities i write about in the book, a cia very senior cia officer named december monday fitzgerald, i quote does aftereh kennedy's assassination he told people if kennedy had lived, castro would not have still been in power

>> when you are the head of the cia, that potentially compromise the director of the cia and it's an obviously very -- if you are hiding something like that, and you are not only have classified information but you are not only top secret but you are at the top of the pins kl in the intelligence community. that's an area potentially of vulnerability and it sends a serious message down the chain of command when you are talking to intelligence officers at the cia or other agencies of the u.s. government. one of the things we are always warning you, don't get involved in extra a marital affairs because you noe don't know who the man or woman might be and they could be agents for hostile power or whatever, someone trying to entrap you. they called it a honey trap in the old days in the espionage novels and all of that. it is a serious issue in the intelligence community. it is a serious i issue any place but especially in the intelligence community and i assume, i don't know in for a fact, i assume it was probably going to come out and he decided i will resign and take the hit. it's time

probe against the former cia director so is this a sign that the cia and f.b.i. are engaged in an interagency dispute will question more. and speaking of political scandals from kennedy to clay and to spitzer and even schwartz nager what is it that causes male politicians to be led astray and doesn't misdeed here and there really affect how these people do their jobs. it's tuesday november thirteenth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our tea we begin today with a look at a movement that says it's bailing out the people rather than the big banks we're talking about the occupy wall street movement and yesterday we talked about their new initiative called the rolling jubilee which buys distressed debt in order to forgive it and while those in the movement are often painted as bongo playing hippies are to correspondent on the stasi the church going to take a more nuanced look at those involved. an artist carving out his college debt number and walks over seventy thousand dollars from columbia and for a masters of fine arts and award win

what in the world is the cia doing, a rather large cia continge ebbsency -- contingency. i would like to know about the cable, the explosion back in june. i would like to know why that was all unanswered. then we have the evens of 9/11. you know, what happened that night. then after 9/11, we have the sort of weird series of events, we have at the u.n. ambassador sent out. why she was sent out -- i don't know. she doesn't seem like the person to be sent out. certainly, she was the wrong person because she carried the party line, at least what i see about this business about the spontaneous protest, as well as the video. then you have general petraeus. he goes 9/14 with the same story. you have the president going on every entertainment -- exaggeration, he went on letterman and the view. that's weird. you have the problem with eligible petraeus and broadwell, the girlfriend. we don't finish that relationship poisoned how he did his job. how did she get classified documents. where did she get that and whether or not, you know, when did the affair begin, did it begin in the m

i mean, the fbi surveiling the cia. we are to believe the attorney general lee nothing about it, but the president had no knowledge of what is going on. is that credible? >> it is not, but this goes back to a even running guns. the attorney general did not know about that. there are a lot of things this attorney-general seems not to know about by convenience. it is a magic of me that that attorney-general did not know when a cabinet official is under investigation properly while the most important cabinet officials that america has because this is the keeper of american secrets. if he did not know it is sheer incompetence, but something tells me he did. >> the fbi reports, my father was an fbi agent. i worked as a federal prosecutor the report directly to the department of justice. they work for the department of justice. the idea you did not know about it, i don't understand that. lou: is it even imaginable that the head of the fbi and the attorney general would not have some considerable discussion about surveillance

you're on the advisory board at the cia. what do you make of this that the fbi had been tipped off and they actually launched an investigation into general petraeus' extramarital affair? >> the key to what suzanne is saying here is that it's the counterintelligence unit. counterintelligence units look at was this -- was the woman -- the party of the second part in the extramarital affair, was she a foreign agent? if she was an american, was she controlled by a foreign agency? was there some way they were going to use this relationship to get information from him, sensitive classified information? and the way they would get it is just as suzanne says to extort from him the threat to expose him. >> our own kyra phillips is also getting some information. you've been working your sources, kyra, what are you learning? >> well, wolf, just within the past few minutes i spoke with very reliable sources close to petraeus who say the woman who he was having an affair with, an extramarital affair, was not under his command while he was

the rest were with the cia. two of the four who died were publicly identified as state department security officers, but were actually working for the cia. adam, bob, a former operative. appreciate you taking the time. adam, you reported that tyrone woods and glen doherty were cia. have you learned why the cia was operate ng benghazi? >> after the fall of gadhafi in libya, it became clear to the cia and other officials that militants could get hold of some of the weapons that gadhafi had and these included weapons like man pads, which are shoulder fire rockets that can be shot at aircraft. there were thousands of them that had to be tracked, so it was important for the cia to surge officers into benghazi to search for those weapons and you had a lot of jihadists moving into eastern libya. >> and i know your report covers how the fact that the cia was so prevalent, created perhaps serious confusion on who was responsible for security. bob, this was a covert operation and they were in libya trying to secure these

cia's job is to gather information. we blame them for not jumping sooner when they get the 9/11 button. that's not their job and i hope that's examined in this investigation as well. >> rose: david ignatius, thank you. norah o'donnell, i'll see you in the morning. john miller, the same. >> see you then. >> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight the conversation about the fallout from last tuesday's election with columnist frank rich. election with columnist frank rich.

ready for the cia? >> well, i feel very fortunate to have been provided such an opportunity to continue to serve and to contribute, if confirmed. >> reporter: taking over the cia last year, his wife holly looking on. married 38 years to his wife holly, petraeus met her before graduating from west point. she was from a long line of army royalty. her great great grandfather fighting in the civil war. her own father a retired four-star general. petraeus last year speaking of the young woman he met at west point. >> i also met the woman who would become my wife. indeed, the best decision i ever made was replying, "sure, happy to do it," when asked if i would escort a visiting coed to a weekend football game. i'll never be able to adequately express my love and appreciation for all that she has done but i can say here, this morning, thanks, holl. i love you. >> reporter: over their nearly four decades together the family moved 24 times following petraeus' career. holly raising two children. and if petraeus w

director or the former cia director. i don't think that's the reason because i think he's much more intelligent than to believe that. >> people are saying it's just extraordinary that the fbi would even be investigating something that on the face of it appeared so trivial. you have this woman, miss kelley, and she apparently is receiving harassing e-mails but it's being made clear from leaks tonight these were not of an "i'm going to kill you" threatening nature. they were just accusing her of being a bit too big for her boots around the army camp and so on. that kind of tone of e-mail. it -- >> it sounded as if they were accusing her of more than that. possibly being too big for her clothing. but go ahead. >> right. either way, we're not talking about sinister death threats. why would the fbi be involved in this anyway? >> the fbi is supposed to investigate predicated federal crimes. and they don't know when they start an investigation precisely whether the evidence ultimately will show there was a crime. i don't know w

adventure awaits. >>> both the fbi and the cia are investigating david petraeus. with me is former fbi assistant director and cia trained case officer lieutenant colonel tony schaefer. pat, we'rete delighted to have u here and you were the head of the f.b.i. haven't seen you in a long time. good to see you. quickly, pat. a civilian complains she's being stalked by e-mails. if i'm a civilian and i call and say i'm being cyber stalked, is the fbi going to get involved? >> listen. >> no. that's a yes or no. if you attached the name petraeus, yes. >> that's not the thing. >> so you're going to take my complaint until you see whether i'm sleeping with petraeus. >> the information indicates that she thought that the general could have been being stalked. >> yeah. >> if that's the t case, you hae level government official. >> which general, allen or petraeus? >> we'll, we'll find out when we see the complaint. >> all right. so let's assume the fbi does this investigation at the rec of jill kelley. i don't know if you have the guys have the picture of the buff, bald fbi c

the cia denies this saying the cia has not had detention authority since january 2009. that's when the president signed executive order 13493. the cia claims any suggestion that the agency is still in the detention business is, quote, uninformed and baseless. but a separate well-placed washington source confirms to fox news that the libyan militiamen being held at the annex in benghazi may be a possible motive for the staged attack on the annex and consulate which was a diplomatic facility. we now know in name only. all of this was reported by adam houseley, bret baier and myself in the last 24 hours, rick. rick: jennifer, thanks so much. jenna: we're going to have a former cia operative on with us in just about ten minutes, we'll ask him about that. >>> in the meantime, when congress returns they're going to be facing a longstanding problem; preventing our nation's economy from going over that so-called fiscal cliff. it appears they'll also be facing the same longstanding political gridlock. just listen to house speaker john boehner and also president obama over the we