according to the former fbi agent bernie, they fbi had a wire topped on them. this wiretap take up a conversation between doug wachter and richard aoki. dug in richard were fellow students at berkeley in the mid-and late '50s. subsequent to that, the fbi approached richard aoki and asked them if you become an fbi informant. and the documents that were released from richard aoki's informant file are consistent with that. they contain references to richard aoki associate with certain people during the late '50s, and they show that he was approached at least by 1961, and that these documents, which the fbi tried very hard to cover up and which were released only as a result of a court order, turn out to have bernie's initials in the bottom of them. so they are consistent with what bernie told me. in essential ways. and what these documents show is that starting in 1961, richard aoki became active in very left wing groups including the young socialist alliance and the socialist workers party, later the vietnam day committee. the asian-american clinical science, the

see, what the fbi -- the fbi got authority under the current foreign intelligence surveillance act to issue national security letters. they can do that inside the fbi without going to a u.s. attorney. my point is there may have been a predicate here, but it's not clear that there was. if the fbi is going to investigate every harassment case, because it's on the internet, they're going to be shut for business and not be able to do anything else, right? so you make judgments about when is there a predicate and is this a priority. that's not clear until you trace this for awhile and get to petraeus, and the question i'm raising is why, what was the predicate, why did they pursue it. >> once it gets to petraeus, tom, and i want your expertise here, what would happen? because i would imagine as soon as they realized david petraeus is involved, there must be a whole series of hoops they have to jump through or markers they have to hit. >> once they identified paula broadwell as the sender of the messages to kelley, then they subpoena the rest of her records and they see an exchange of anony

the fbi thought that he would be immediately asked to resign. that's what would normally happen with a government employee, but, in fact, the white house said no, we want to wait until after the election. so agents were furious. i've been given insight to the actual agents that were doing the case, and they think it's inexcusable that this was allowed to continue for months without firing him. >> let me just jump in there, ronald. obviously, this is all your independent claims and reporting. we've been unable to corroborate this in the time scale we've had tonight but you do have very good fbi sources. i want to turn to bob baer. he's the cnn contributcontribut. does this make sense to you that this could be the sequence of events? >> oh, absolutely, but i tend to attribute more significance to the fbi of getting into petraeus' e-mails. the fbi, as a matter of course, doesn't look at affairs, doesn't read military officers' e-mails or cia officers. they have to be alerted to some sort of crime or counterintelligence problem. i can only speculate

why would the fbi be involved in this anyway? >> the fbi is supposed to investigate predicated federal crimes. and they don't know when they start an investigation precisely whether the evidence ultimately will show there was a crime. i don't know what they were told initially by this woman, or what they were told by anybody who was friendly with her who had the ear of somebody at the bureau. but with great respect, that's one of those subsidiary questions. it's an interesting if not then would this all have happened. that's sort of the cleopatra's nose theory. if she had an ugly nose, would history have been different. that's an interesting question to discuss but i don't think it's a fundamental one. >> this revelation that apparently the investigation was concluded four days before the election clearly somebody has decided, whoever that may be and i'm sure we'll find out in the forms of time, that the information should not be passed to the white house, although i share your concern about the white house's blanket denial they

the fbi thought that he would be immediately asked to resign. that's what would normally happen with a government employee, but, in fact, the white house said no, we want to wait until after the election. so agents were furious. i've been given insight to the actual agents that were doing the case, and they think it's inexcusable that this was allowed to continue for months without firing him. >> let me just jump in there, ronald. obviously, this is all your independent claims and reporting. we've been unable to corroborate this in the time scale we've had tonight but you do have very good fbi sources. i want to turn to bob baer. he's the cnn contributor. does this make sense to you that this could be the sequence of events? >> oh, absolutely, but i tend to attribute more significance to the fbi of getting into petraeus' e-mails. the fbi, as a matter of course, doesn't look at affairs, doesn't read military officers' e-mails or cia officers. they have to be alerted to some sort of crime or counterintelligence problem. i can only speculate what t

the fbi's investigating this. a woman sends some -- first of all, tell us the nature of these e-mails that would prompt an fbi investigation. >> well, here's the situation. the woman, whom we have confirmed was jill kelley who was a married woman in tampa who did some social and wounded warrior work with fort macdill. she complained to a friend of hers in the fbi. that's how this got launched. she knew very well, a close friend who was an fbi agent and said she was getting these anonymous e-mails, more than a dozen e-mails, on two separate accounts. and very confused because she didn't know who they were from, and they were threatening. >> the nature of these e-mails, andrea, did the fbi have any reason to believe that this woman's life was in danger or that perhaps violence might come to her? >> they were -- this agent in tampa referred it to his colleagues at the fbi. so it started as a local or regional fbi investigation in tampa. completely unrelated to david petraeus. the woman did not know that paula broadwe

she went to the fbi and doesn't realize that the fbi would do a total investigation in on her as well call petraeus. >> she is getting e-mails. and wouldn't she go to petraeus, you wouldn't believe this e-mail. i am getting them. >> if she had shame. >> but she thought she was so connected no one could bring her down. >> that is it a double entrendry. >> there is it one lawsuit and you know that a civil one could come between jill kelley and suing paula broadwell. she has been psycher stalked and she could actually go out and go after paula for doing that. >> you are sleeping with the head of the cia and you can write an autobigrammy . and you have no credentials to do and we'll award you money. >> some people think the terrorist attack caused by a youtube video. and people may. >> gloria allred will call jim kelley. >> her name will not be smoking. >> aren't you concerned about the fact that men can be so weak that they can're - can be manipulated. if you could read my mind 23 hours a day. we are sick human beings and we are visually stimulated and sexually predatorial. nand yes, we

was not passed to the head of the fbi for four days t took four days to find the head of the fbi, i don't know why, and the fbi is saying the reason why they can't get information promptly to the director is because hurricane sandy delayed the message. figure on that one. the fbi may be at her house tonight but they have been dragging their feet trying to move this. >> well, i think there's still a lot of questions that are to be answered as to the timeline, why certain things were done when. i think that's one of the big outstanding questions. but, you know, a lot of it gets back to the very beginning, which is the question i've heard a lot from folks of that just been reading our stories is why did the fbi start this investigation anyway? i get weird or annoying e-mails all the time and i don't run to the fbi and if i did i don't know that the fbi would do anything about it. that's another reason there's some i think gaps that need to be explained as to how this process began and where it ended up. >> of course, you have to go back to the fact there are four americans mured in the

he put it all on the fbi. >> the fbi has its own protocalls in terms of how they proceed and i'm going to let director mueller and others examine these protocalls and make some statements to the public. >> now, the fbi is facing intense criticism over its handling of the investigation. perhaps, that's why robert mueller made an unexpected visit to capitol hill today to answer questions. at issue is the timeline of ooechblts and why it took as long as as it did for the pyeatt to find out that the nation's chief intelligence person was under investigation. let's just go through this timeline again. it started in may. the fbi at that time first started looking into anonymous harassing e-mails sent to jill kelley. that's where agent humphries comes in. it was late in the summer when high level officials at the fbi and justice department were told that their investigation had also uncovered an affair between david petraeus and his biographer, paula broadwell. it's not clear when mueller and holder were notified, but in mid october, the fbi interviewed paula broadwell and david petraeus. eri

fbi failure. the fbi investigated the petraeus affair beginning with fears the cia's director's e-mail had been hacked at the beginning of the summer. yet lawmakers and the president were not told about it for six months, until after the election. under growing pressure and criticism, the fbi will be testifying on its role in the scandal. they'll go behind closed doors with members of the house intelligence committee demanding to who knew what and when they knew it. suzanne kelly. what are lawmakers going to find out? >> well, they're going to have some meetings tomorrow on the hill that are going to come before hearings open thursday. and michael morell, acting director of the cia and sean joyce will be involved in these meetings. they'll be asked a lot of questions about what they knew about the petraeus investigation, when they knew it, and why they didn't come forward. a couple things at play here, erin. one is, keep in mind, the fbi itself has said very little about this case so far. publicly

fbi failure. the fbi investigated the petraeus affair beginning with fears the cia's director's e-mail had been hacked at the beginning of the summer. yet lawmakers and the president were not told about it for six months, until after the election. under growing pressure and criticism, the fbi will be testifying on its role in the scandal. they'll go behind closed doors with members of the house intelligence committee demanding to who knew what and when they knew it. suzanne kelly. what are lawmakers going to find out? >> well, they're going to have some meetings tomorrow on the hill that are going to come before hearings open thursday. and michael morel, acting direct tore of the cia and sean joyce will be involved in these meetings. they'll be asked a lot of questions about what they knew about the petraeus investigation, when they knew it, and why they didn't come forward. a couple things at play here, erin. one is, keep in mind, the fbi itself has said very little about this case so far. public

to the fbi she communicates with a friend who she meets at a fbi commune a event. hey do you remember me, we were in touch can you look at somebody to look at this. he brings her to the cyber squd and they say where is this going to lead not knowing it was going of going to lead to the general's and so on. that's who jill kelly in the context of this case. who she is in the larger world is a tampa socialite married to a prominent although much lower profile and quiet radiologist from the moffett cancer center who was in the military community. she was on the social roster, she was on the socom that's special operations command social roster. she jumped with the parajumpers in a tan done jump. she attended the admiral's parties and affairs and so on. that's who she is in that context. >> rose: so she went to the cyber whatever the name was and then they began to look at her e-mails and who she received e-mails from and from that they found e-mails having to do with general john allen. >> right one of the ways you do a case, all right let's see who is sending the har

. >> see, what the fbi, the fbi got authority under the current foreign intelligence surveillance act, to issue national security letters so they can do that inside the fbi without going to a u.s. attorney. my point is there may have been a predicate here, but it's not clear that there was. if the fbi is going to investigate every harassment case, because it's on the internet, they're going to be shut for business and not be able to do anything else, right? so you make judgments about when is there a predicate and is this a priority. that's not clear until you trace this for awhile and get to petraeus, and the question i'm raising is why, what was the predicate, why did they pursue it. >> once it against to petraeus, tom, i want your expertise here, what would happen? because i would imagine as soon as they realized david petraeus is involved, there must be a whole series of hoops they have to jump through or markers they have to hit. >> once they identified paula broadwell as the sender of the messages to kelley, then they subpoena the rest of her records and they see an exchange of

we're learning tonight about those e-mails that first raised suspicions and new questions about the fbi investigation. >>> going to extremes, so many still suffering two whole weeks now after hurricane sandy. and now after the hurricane, then the snow. now it feels like spring while winter hits out west. risk factor, a reality check tonight from dr. nancy snyderman on the story in the news today about pregnancy, the flu, and autism. >>> and behind the wheel, tonight how women are taking the lead. this has to do with a huge change that has happened slowly on the american roads. nightly news begins now. >>> good evening, the damage, both personal and political, continues to pile up following the resignation of the director of the cia, retired four-star general david petraeus. easily the most celebrated general officer of a generation. and now, the questions are rolling in about the extramarital affair that led to all of this, about the e-mails that led the fbi to petraeus. and how much further this all goes. we begin our reporting of the story tonight with nbc's andrea mitchell in our was

fbi crashed through. first of all, they launch a -- they use their cyber unit to launch an investigation on half dozen e-mails talking about a purported affair. they launch a cyber investigation there. and then they start digging in and they have to go into a private citizen's e-mail account. and so they go into paula broadwell's private e-mail accounts, they've crashed through a wall there. the facts as we know it do not justify other than somebody wants to embarrass david petraeus. >> right. >> and then they get into paula broadwell's e-mails, then break down another wall to get into david petraeus' e-mail account. and then they justify that and break down that wall and say, well, you know, national security may have been compromised because maybe she sent along classified documents, but she didn't, so there, somebody responsible at the fbi has to say, okay, guys, you know what? nothing to see here. it's internal investigation, you know, petraeus may be acting up, but this is no longer a crime. they sai

>> i would prefer you to the fbi. they have -- as i understand it protocols in place for when they notify the legislative and executive branches of investigations. and, you know, it is simply a fact that the white house was not aware of the situation regarding general petraeus until wednesday, and the situation regarding general allen until friday. so, you know, the fbi is the place to go in terms of an explanation of the protocols they follow. but i understand that that is the answer that they will give, that there are protocols they follow, that govern how they inform the various branches of government of these kinds of investigations. >> do you understand how people would think this is utterly bizarre, i mean the day after the election, and the anger you're hearing on capitol hill that they didn't know this was going on, at least the timing, at least the appearance. >> look, all i can tell you is when the white house was informed. and i would let the relevant members of congress explain to you how and when they wer

the fbi thought that he would be immediately asked to resign. that's what would normally happen with a government employee, but, in fact, the white house said no, we want to wait until after the election. so agents were furious. i've been given insight to the actual agents that were doing the case, and they think it's inexcusable that this was allowed to continue for months without firing him. >> let me just jump in there, ronald. obviously, this is all your independent claims and reporting. we've been unable to corroborate this in the time scale we've had tonight but you do have very good fbi sources. i want to turn to bob baer. he's the cnn does this make sense to you that this could be the sequence of events? >> oh, absolutely, but i tend to attribute more significance to the fbi of getting into petraeus' e-mails. the fbi, as a matter of course, doesn't look at affairs, doesn't read military officers' e-mails or cia officers. they have to be alerted to some sort of crime or counterintelligence problem. i can only speculate what that would be.

i'm sorry. >> the fbi -- >> no. the fact is based on what we know now, there was no harassment concluded and nothing threatening. no one said the e-mails were threatening. i said -- i think what the point david is trying to make and a legitimate question, who was the underlying predicate that the fbi had with the citizen got an e-mail to open up the preliminary inquiry? i don't think it's clear and becomes not about the threat or the harassment, whatever you want to call this thing related to kelly, this becomes the fbi's cyber division is concerned that petraeus's private e-mail is hacked in to. that's why they continue this and the crime they're looking at. this is a red herring about harassment of jill kelly, a private citizen and a social liaison. ludicrous. that's not a predicate. >> do you think they overstepped that? >> go ahead, tom. >> determination would be made that, you know, what's the content of these messages? they would take that to the u.s. attorney's office and determine whether or not this might b

he put it all on the fbi. >> the fbi has its own protocalls in terms of how they proceed and i'm going to let director mueller and others examine these protocalls and make some statements to the public. >> now, the fbi is facing intense criticism over its handling of the investigation. perhaps, that's why robert mueller made an unexpected visit to capitol hill today to answer questions. at issue is the timeline of events and why it took as lock as it did to find out that the nation's chief intelligence person was under investigation. let's just go through this timeline again. it started in may. the fbi at that time first started looking into anonymous harassing e-mails sent to jill kelley. that's where agent humphries comes in. it was late in the summer when high level officials at the fbi and justice department were told that their investigation had also uncovered an affair between david petraeus and his biographer, paula broadwell. it's not clear when mueller and holder were notified, but in mid october, the fbi interviewed paula broadwell and david petraeus. eric cantor was told of

when the fbi, yes, worked on crime, but under hoover the fbi worked on politics, too. the agency's efforts in the latter undermined everything the nation needed from the fbi on the former. that's why congress ordered reforms for the fbi after watergate. investigating crime while also secretly playing politics is a combination with a bad outcome. that's one of the things we learned from the scandal of the nixon administration and its downfall, but also from decades watching j. edgar hoover operate. last week we learned general david petraeus had an affair. the fbi discovered that affair over the summer while it was looking into something else. those revelations led to protest from members of congress that they had not been told sooner than last week, along with everyone else. they wanted to be notified about this. ranking democrat on the intelligence committee dianne feinstein says the fbi should have told congress, bipartisan, republican, homeland security committee calms alerting congress in an instance like this the fbi's obligation. lawmakers are sure to demand answ

if your name came up as part of an fbi investigation or adjacent to an fbi vacation, how long would it take tor your name to get up to the president? he said two or three hours. if h the president was out of te country, probably aay day. no more than that. >> pat, obviously you had nothing to do with this. i want everyone to try to understand what happens in the f.b.i. if theet fbi is then investigatg the head of the cia, now, remember,he this started in may. they knew it was petraeus by the summer, and they actually interviewed petraeus and his paramour broadwell for the second time in september or october. wouldn't they have an obligation to tell the president? >> well, listen. the fbi works with the department of justice and eric holder stated he was aware of the investigation. >> why didn't holder tell the president? >> that i can't answer you. i can tell you that bob muller is a very ethical man, a very good man. >> i have to agree with you, pat. >> no doubt in my mind that they advised the attorney general. why the attorney general did not advise the president i think we need to

the fbi. as i understand it they have protocols in place for when the notify the legislative and executive branches of investigations. the fbi is the place to go in terms of explanation the protocols they follow. i would refer, that said earlier, to policies in place at the fbi for how they deal with notifications investigations. lou: as you saw and heard, a frustrating day for the white house press corps. the president spokesman however did not shy away from a question on this petraeus would testify in front of congress on benghazi. made it clear the administration is firmly supportive of petraeus' successor. he will be facing questions that are still lingering over if the cia refused requests for help on the ground on september 11 and why three days after that attack then director petraeus but in the attack in the flash mob incited by childish, amateurish, less than 14 minutes long youtube video. >> is up to congress to make decisions of who is called to testify. but the president is confide

justice department sends in the fbi. there are two teams, a heavily armed tactical unit with armored personnel carriers, and negotiators, armed with a phone and their wits. >> i teach negotiators that the very first thing you have to have is self-control. >> reporter: gary nessler is the bureau's chief negotiator. when you got there, when you were briefed, what were you dealing with? >> i think in the context of the atf, where there clearly was anger, the freedom dominant emotion i was seeing or behavior was devastation. almost like walking zombies. >> reporter: nessner's team wants to understand koresh's personality. >> and this is something this whole nation's going to have to learn. whether they are going to learn by being sober and listening or whether they are going to learn the hard way. >> i believe everything he did, almost throughout the entirety of the ordeal, was ambivalence, was part of me wants to live, part of me wants to die. >> reporter: they looked for clues in this tv news report about koresh and branch