But law enforcement officials did not notify anyone outside the F.B.I. or the Justice Department until last week because the investigation was incomplete and initial concerns about possible security breaches, which would demand more immediate action, did not appear to be justified, the officials said.
The new accounts of the events that led to Mr. Petraeus’s sudden resignation on Friday shed light on the competing pressures facing F.B.I. agents who recognized the high stakes of any investigation involving the C.I.A. director but who were wary of exposing a private affair with no criminal or security implications. For the first time Sunday, the woman whose report of harassing e-mails led to the exposure of the affair was identified as Jill Kelley, 37, of Tampa, Fla.
Some members of Congress have protested the delay in being notified of the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Petraeus until just after the presidential election. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that her committee would “absolutely” demand an explanation. An F.B.I. case involving the C.I.A. director “could have had an effect on national security,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think we should have been told.”
But the bureau’s history would make the privacy question especially significant; in his decades-long reign as the F.B.I.’s first director, J. Edgar Hoover sometimes directed agents to spy improperly on the sex lives of public figures and then used the resulting information to pressure or blackmail them.
Law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the investigation, defended the F.B.I.’s handling of the case. “There are a lot of sensitivities in a case like this,” said a senior law enforcement official. “There were hints of possible intelligence and security issues, but they were unproven. You constantly ask yourself, ‘What are the notification requirements? What are the privacy issues?’ ”
A close friend of the Petraeus family said Sunday that the intimate relationship between Mr. Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, began after he retired from the military last year and about two months after he started as C.I.A. director. It ended about four months ago, said the friend, who did not want to be identified while discussing personal matters. In a letter to the C.I.A. work force on Friday, Mr. Petraeus acknowledged having the affair. Ms. Broadwell has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Under military regulations, adultery can be a crime. At the C.I.A., it can be a security issue, since it can make an intelligence officer vulnerable to blackmail, but it is not a crime.
On Sunday, the same Petraeus family friend confirmed the identity of Ms. Kelley, whose complaint to the F.B.I. about “harassing” e-mails, eventually traced to Ms. Broadwell, set the initial investigation in motion several months ago. Ms. Kelley and her husband became friends with Mr. Petraeus and his wife, Holly, when Mr. Petraeus was head of the military’s Central Command, which has its headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. Ms. Kelley, who volunteers to help injured service members and military families at MacDill, has been photographed with the Petraeuses at social events in Tampa.
“We and our family have been friends with General Petraeus and his family for over five years,” Ms. Kelley and her husband, Scott Kelley, said in a statement released Sunday. “We respect his and his family’s privacy, and want the same for us and our three children.”
The statement did not acknowledge that it was Ms. Kelley who received the e-mails, which was first reported by The Associated Press.
U.S. Officials Say Petraeus’s Affair Known in Summer
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