Mueller teamed up with Eric Holder to protect Obama admin.

in wake of
Benghazi fallout
With a showdown between President Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller
looming, old issues are raising new questions about Muellers decision-making and integrity.
Nearly five years after David Petraeus resigned as President Obamas Director of the CIA, the
investigation into the former General still paints then-FBI Director Mueller as a willful
accomplice in Eric Holders efforts to protect the presidents administration against political
blowback related to the terrorist attack on a US consulate in Benghazi in September of 2012.
Its reported that in the late summer of 2012, Robert Mueller, then Director of the FBI,
and Eric Holder, then Obamas Attorney General, became aware of a federal investigation
involving General David Petraeus, who at the time served as Director of the CIA. The
investigation seemingly began as a simple matter just months before one friend asked another
friend at the FBI to investigate the harassing emails she had received. By late summer, however,
it was clear to investigators at the FBI that their simple investigation had led them to a larger
issue -- the Director of the CIA, Petraeus, was engaged in an extramarital affair and possibly had
disseminated classified information. A case involving such a public, and consequential, figure
was understandably taken to the highest law enforcement officials in the land Mueller and
Holder.
Over the course of the next several months the FBI interviewed Petraeus and his mistress,
Paula Broadwell, and found classified information on Broadwells computer. However, during
this period, Holder and Mueller actively decided to keep the investigation a secret, declining to
inform anyone at the White House and deciding not to brief any members of Congress.
It wasnt until 5 PM on Election Day 2012 that Muellers deputy, Sean Joyce, informed
James Clapper, then the Director of National Intelligence, of the Petraeus affair. Clapper
immediately told Petraeus that he should resign, and he notified the White House the next day.
At this time, knowledge of the Petraeus investigation had hardly been contained. In late
October, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor had been informed of the investigation by an
FBI whistleblower who feared that the investigation was being stalled for political reasons, and
Cantor contacted Robert Mueller to seek clarification. According to the White Houses version,
President Obama and his team were completely unaware of a major investigation involving the
Director of the CIA, even when the Presidents fiercest allies on the Hill had already learned of
the matter. Furthermore, when it was clear that news of the investigation had leaked, Mueller
and Holder upheld their decision not to brief the President or members of Congress.
Following Petraeus resignation, several members of Congress expressed dismay at
Muellers decision to keep the investigation under wraps, even going so far as hinting that the
FBI and Holder deliberately sat on information that could have been damaging to Obamas re-
election campaign.
Senator Susan Collins said: Im puzzled by much of what has occurred in the FBI
investigation.
 Congressman Peter King went even further, questioning whether the fact that Petraeus
knew he was under investigation affected his testimony to Congress about the security failures
around the Benghazi attack and the administration's misstatements about the circumstances of
the killings in the immediate aftermath. King stated that so long as Petraeus was in his job, he
was likely to remain loyal to the White House version of events in Benghazi.
Even Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein criticized Muellers decision, saying that
a decision was made somewhere not to brief us, which is atypical.
Its obvious why public disclosure of Petraeus affair would have rattled the Obama
Administration in the middle of a contentious re-election campaign. If Petraeus would have
resigned in the weeks leading up to the election, when the investigation was in full-swing, then it
would have been viewed as admission on the part of the Administration that the CIA, State
Department, and other federal officials had significantly failed to protect against or respond to an
attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead in September of 2012.
With so many questions surrounding the White Houses version of events, Petraeus resignation
would have only added more fuel to the fire and undoubtedly have provided ammunition to
President Obamas opponent, Mitt Romney.
From a political perspective, it was better for the Obama Administration for the
investigation into Petraeus to remain private, even while FBI investigators were determining that
the Director of the CIA had shared classified information. Eric Holder undoubtedly understood
this, and Robert Mueller must have as well, or its reasonable that Mueller at least was pressured
to stay quiet.
The New Yorker writes about the pressures facing both Petraeus and Mueller: The
internal pressure must have been enormous on Petraeus during this period. Perhaps he tried to
outlast the election in order to shelter Obama from the fallout of his own personal foibles.
Perhaps the F.B.I. director Mueller tried to keep the scandal from political exploitation by
keeping it under wraps until Election Day.
If this was the intention, to keep the investigation under wraps until after the election,
then why exactly did Muellers deputy inform Clapper of the affair in the late hours of election
day even after the FBI had decided that there was no criminal wrongdoing on the part of
Petraeus? And why, then, was Petraeus forced to resign on the eve of his scheduled testimony to
Congress on the events in Benghazi? Furthermore, why was Petraeus rescheduled to testify on
Benghazi only after Mueller and the FBI had made the decision to prosecute the former Director
of the CIA on charges that were less than what he had been accused of?
The most important question may be: why did Petraeus, against his better judgement,
allow the State Department to edit his Departments talking points on Benghazi to include the
argument that the attack resulted from an impromptu protest to a Youtube video during the same
time he knew that he was under investigation by Muellers FBI? And why did Mueller willingly
allow Eric Holder to keep the investigation underground until his boss had been re-elected, and
why has he never explained himself for the delay in notifying Congress on such an important
matter?