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The acting C.I.A. director, Michael J. Morell arrived Thursday for closed-door meetings about the attack that killed four Americans in Libya.
WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general has started an investigation into the general conduct of David H. Petraeus, who resigned last week as the C.I.A.’s director after admitting to having an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
The inquiry will focus largely on whether Mr. Petraeus misused the trappings and perquisites of his position, including security details, private jets and special accommodations, to facilitate the affair, a person familiar with the investigation said.
There is no evidence so far to suggest Mr. Petraeus did so, said agency officials, who notified the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of the matter on Thursday. But given the extraordinary circumstances, agency officials thought it prudent to have the inspector general review Mr. Petraeus’s conduct.
“An investigation is exploratory and doesn’t presuppose any particular outcome,” said Preston Golson, a C.I.A. spokesman.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on Thursday that the F.B.I. investigation into a cyberstalking case that revealed the affair concluded that e-mails Mr. Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell exchanged did not violate national security.
Speaking at a news conference in New Orleans to announce a settlement with the oil company BP, Mr. Holder said the White House and Congress were not notified about Mr. Petraeus’s situation until last week because the national security concerns had been allayed.
“As we went through the investigation, we looked at the facts and tried to examine them as they developed,” Mr. Holder said. “We felt very secure in the knowledge that a national security threat did not exist that warranted the sharing of that information with the White House or with the Hill.”
The spotlight will turn to Mr. Petraeus on Friday, when he testifies in closed session to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees — not about his affair, though that may well come up, but mainly about the attacks on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Mr. Petraeus gave his first interview since resigning, telling Kyra Phillips of CNN that he had never given classified information to Ms. Broadwell and that his resignation had been solely because of their relationship. He said it had nothing to do with disagreements over the attack on the American Mission and a C.I.A. safe house in Benghazi.
Leading administration officials, meanwhile, met privately with lawmakers for a third straight day to explain how the Petraeus investigation was handled and explore its national security implications. Among those appearing before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence; Michael J. Morell, the acting C.I.A. director; and Sean Joyce, the deputy F.B.I. director.
After a four-hour closed hearing on Thursday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who heads the Intelligence Committee, said the panel had reviewed a detailed chronology of the attack on Sept. 11 that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. It included a video made from a composite of sources, including Predator drone video of the events that night.
Ms. Feinstein said that in addition to meeting with Mr. Petraeus on Friday to hear his account of the attack — as well as an assessment of a visit he made just two weeks ago to the C.I.A.’s station in Tripoli, Libya’s capital — the committee would hold at least three additional hearings on the matter.
“We are in effect fact-finding,” she said.
Ms. Feinstein and the panel’s senior Republican, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, declined to tell reporters what questions they had asked the witnesses, but Mr. Chambliss and his colleagues said previously they would examine possible intelligence flaws, security lapses and the Obama administration’s handling of the issue.
“Were mistakes made?” Mr. Chambliss said. “We know mistakes were made, and we’ve got to learn from that.”
Earlier in the day, the same administration officials faced tough questioning from members of the House Intelligence Committee.
Representative C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the committee’s top Democrat, said after the hearing that he was satisfied the F.B.I. had behaved properly in not notifying the White House or lawmakers about the inquiry sooner, in keeping with post-Watergate rules set up to prevent interference in criminal investigations.
C.I.A. Investigates Petraeus Affair as Lawmakers Press Libya Attack Inquiry
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C.I.A. Investigates Petraeus Affair as Lawmakers Press Libya Attack Inquiry
