Top Afghanistan General Cleared in Email Ethics Probe

The commander of the Afghanistan war didn't have sex with or engage in any otherwise inappropriate behavior with a Tampa socialite, according to the Pentagon's inspector general. This is how the bizarre downfall of ex-CIA Director David Petraeus winds to a conclusion.

Marine Gen. John Allen's career has been upended for the past two months after the FBI gave the Pentagon a large volume of email between Allen and Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, the initial recipient of harassing, anonymous emails from Petraeus' mistress, Paula Broadwell. Pentagon officials initially characterized those emails as 'flirtatious,' rather than evidence of an affair. Yet the Pentagon inspector general began combing through them to make sure the married general didn't engage in an affair that would have violated military law.

Spoiler: He didn't, as first reported by Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post. 'The Secretary was pleased to learn that allegations of professional misconduct were not substantiated by the investigation,' George Little, top spokesman for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, stated late Tuesday afternoon. 'The Secretary has complete confidence in the continued leadership of General Allen, who is serving with distinction in Afghanistan.'

But Allen might not be out of the woods yet. President Obama nominated Allen to become the next NATO commander in October, and the Pentagon review of his emails prompted Panetta to ask the Senate to put that nomination on hold. Little's statement didn't mention if the NATO job is still in the cards for Allen, and Pentagon officials didn't respond to requests for clarification. The New York Times quoted an anonymous official saying 'The final decision has not yet been made on General Allen's nomination.'

That means the only one still under federal investigation, whether criminal or administrative, in the Petraeus scandal is likely Petraeus himself. The Justice Department isn't going to prosecute Broadwell for cyber-harassing Kelley. As of December, sources close to Broadwell said they had no indication she's a subject or target of any investigation about improper handling of classified information, the suspicion that prompted the FBI to seize her computer in November.

The CIA inspector general opened its own inquiry into Petraeus in November, to see whether Petraeus used any agency resources to conduct his affair. It's unclear what the status of that review is. But it carries no criminal penalty. Should the Justice Department opt not to indict Broadwell or Petraeus for bad classified-information hygiene, then the sex scandal that brought down one of the most respected Army generals of his generation will have fizzled out.

Jill Kelley and her husband Scott also made it clear they want vindication. They published an op-ed in the Washington Post saying that Broadwell's emails contained 'threats of blackmail and extortion,' prompting them to seek help from an FBI agent they knew. That move sparked a sprawling inquiry into several people's private email accounts ' but now the Kelleys want Congress to 'consider what access to and disclosure of private e-mails of law-abiding citizens will be allowed, and what safeguards should be in place' as part of a debate on strengthening the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Allen has yet to issue any statement. He still has one final task in Afghanistan before Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford relieves him: finalizing his recommendations for troop reductions in 2013 and for the size of the U.S.' post-2014 residual presence.