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What Obama Did Not Need to Know

By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services on

Sometime near the end of October, an unidentified FBI employee reportedly took the matter into his own hands and told two congressional Republicans, Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington state and later House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who said in a statement that the employee "was concerned that sensitive, classified information might have been compromised." Bu there were no details as to what the informant was trying to expose or whether he might have had political motives.

Cantor said he turned over the information to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who I would hope already was aware of what his underlings had discovered. But did the president need to know too?

Yes, says Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican who says that the FBI had "an absolute obligation to tell the president," once their probe came close to the CIA director. But rules normally forbid revealing too much too soon to members of an administration about others who are being investigated. Privacy and reputations can be needlessly damaged if the allegations don't pan out.

Besides, If the FBI had notified the White House sooner about Petraeus, we might well be hearing howls from lawmakers, including King, that the investigation had become politicized.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, a vigorous debate has erupted over whether Petraeus should have resigned or not. He might have been able to carry out his job as well as ever, but as a fellow Army veteran, I appreciate his bow to the high value that the military culture puts on honor.

 

He did the right thing to preserve whatever public honor he has left, which is considerable. The rest is between him and his family.

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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com.


(c) 2012 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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