House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Sunday said he was not ready to rule out the possibility that President Obama knew about former CIA director David Petraeus’s affair before Election Day.
“I’m not sure the president was not told before election day,” said Rogers in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The attorney general knew months before this. There was no formal notice to either Congress or the intelligence community,” he added. “We just need to ask the question, I hope he'll come up and talk to us.”
Petraeus resigned as the nation’s top spy earlier this month, citing an extramarital affair.
The FBI and senior Justice Department officials began an investigation into Petraeus after suspicions that his emails may have been hacked. While the probe did not find a security leak, investigators uncovered an extramarital affair between the then-director and his biographer Paula Broadwell.
Lawmakers have expressed anger that they or the president were not informed that the CIA director was under investigation, with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) saying she was not told until the day of Petraeus’s resignation.
The White House says Obama was notified about the probe 2 days before Petraeus stepped down, but some Republican lawmakers have questioned if the president knew sooner.
Feinstein on Sunday dismissed those suggestions.
“I spoke to the attorney general, he explained the process that the FBI carried out,” she said. “There’s a reason for not disclosing it, so that there is no manipulation, that there is an ability to move ahead without anything political weigh-in on any side.”
The House Intelligence Committee heard from FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday about the Petraeus investigation.
President Obama during a Wednesday press conference said he was “withholding judgment” about the FBI’s decision to not share information about the probe with him or lawmakers until more facts were known.
