King on Petraeus: ‘Crisis of major proportions’

Politico is reporting Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Monday the FBI was “derelict in its duty” when it failed to tell the White House immediately after learning about former CIA Director David Petraeus’s affair.

“Once the FBI realized that it was investigating the director of the CIA or the CIA director had come within its focus or its scope, I believe at that time they had an absolute obligation to tell the president,” King said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Not to protect David Petraeus, but to protect the president.”

“The fact is he is a key part of the president’s foreign policy team, maybe more than any other CIA director in recent times,” King added.

“He was going around the world negotiating various understandings and agreements, I’m aware of that. And to have someone out there in such a sensitive position who the FBI thought perhaps could have been compromised or was under the scope of an FBI investigation who may or may not have been having an affair at the time, that to me had to have been brought to the president or certainly to the National Security Council. If not, the FBI was derelict in its duty.”

“This is a crisis, I believe, of major proportions,” King added. “This is not the usual political thing. We’re not talking about the secretary of commerce or some undersecretary somewhere.”

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