Petraeus due at Capitol for Benghazi questioning

WASHINGTON (AP) — For­mer CIA Direc­tor David Petraeus is prepar­ing to field ques­tions from law­mak­ers about the attack on the U.S. Con­sulate in Libya, his appear­ance on Capi­tol Hill com­ing one week after he resigned over an extra­mar­i­tal affair.

Petraeus is under inves­ti­ga­tion by the agency for pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing, though that’s not the sub­ject of the closed-door hear­ings he is set to attend Fri­day. The Sep­tem­ber attack in Beng­hazi, which killed the U.S. ambas­sador and three other Amer­i­cans, cre­ated a polit­i­cal firestorm, with Repub­li­cans claim­ing that the White House mis­led the pub­lic on what led to the violence.

Law­mak­ers spent hours Thurs­day inter­view­ing top intel­li­gence and national secu­rity offi­cials in try­ing to deter­mine what the intel­li­gence com­mu­nity knew before, dur­ing and after the Beng­hazi attack. They viewed secu­rity video from the con­sulate and sur­veil­lance footage by an unarmed CIA Preda­tor drone that showed events in real time.

Petraeus, who will appear first before the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee and then its Sen­ate coun­ter­part, was expected to pro­vide more details about the U.S. response to the attack.

‘‘Direc­tor Petraeus went to Tripoli and inter­viewed many of the peo­ple involved,’’ said Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair­man Dianne Fein­stein, D-Calif.

‘‘I’d like to get his sense of why it took as long as it did to get more accu­rate assess­ments of what took place in Beng­hazi,’’ said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a mem­ber of the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee. As for Petraeus tes­ti­fy­ing after his res­ig­na­tion amid a sex scan­dal, Schiff said, ‘‘He’s a tough indi­vid­ual and I am sure he will han­dle it to the best of his ability.’’

Petraeus has acknowl­edged an affair with a woman later iden­ti­fied as his biog­ra­pher, Paula Broad­well. The FBI began inves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter last sum­mer but didn’t notify the White House or Con­gress until after the election.

In the course of inves­ti­gat­ing the Petraeus affair, the FBI uncov­ered sug­ges­tive emails between Afghanistan war chief Gen. John Allen and Florida socialite Jill Kel­ley, both of them mar­ried. Pres­i­dent Barack Obama has put a pro­mo­tion nom­i­na­tion for Allen on hold.

Top national secu­rity offi­cials trudged to Capi­tol Hill on Thurs­day to grap­ple with fall­out from the sex scan­dal as Defense Sec­re­tary Leon Panetta asked ser­vice chiefs to review ethics train­ing for mil­i­tary officers.

Law­mak­ers went for­ward with a hear­ing on the nom­i­na­tion of Gen. Joseph Dun­ford to replace Allen in Afghanistan. But with Allen’s own future uncer­tain, they put off con­sid­er­a­tion of his pro­mo­tion to U.S. Euro­pean Com­mand chief and NATO supreme allied com­man­der. Allen had ini­tially been sched­uled to testify.

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 Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee were Direc­tor of National Intel­li­gence James Clap­per and Act­ing CIA Direc­tor Michael Morell.

Rep. Dutch Rup­pers­berger of Mary­land, the committee’s top Demo­c­rat, said after the hear­ing that he was sat­is­fied that the FBI 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.

The CIA on Thurs­day opened an exploratory inves­ti­ga­tion into Petraeus’ con­duct. The inquiry ‘‘doesn’t pre­sup­pose any par­tic­u­lar out­come,’’ said CIA spokesman Pre­ston Gol­son. At the same time, Army offi­cials say that, at this point, there is no appetite for recall­ing Petraeus to active duty to pur­sue any adul­tery charges against him.

Petraeus, in his first media inter­view since he resigned, told CNN that he had never given clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion to Broad­well. The general’s biog­ra­pher also has said she didn’t receive such mate­r­ial from Petraeus.

But the FBI found a sub­stan­tial num­ber of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments on Broadwell’s com­puter and in her home, accord­ing to a law enforce­ment offi­cial, and is inves­ti­gat­ing how she got them. That offi­cial spoke only on con­di­tion of anonymity because the offi­cial was not autho­rized to speak pub­licly about the case. The Army has now sus­pended her secu­rity clearance.