TAMPA, Fla. — FBI Special Agent Frederick Humphries II played a key role in investigating a terrorist attack aimed at blowing up Los Angeles International Airport just as the year 2000 dawned.
Today, the agent, who also fatally shot a knife-wielding man during a 2010 altercation, finds himself in the middle of the widening scandal that has resulted in CIA Director David Petraeus' resignation.
Humphries, 47, was the agent who initially saw the emails the FBI said Petraeus' biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell, sent to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, a woman she apparently saw as a rival for Petraeus' affections. She also allegedly sent emails to Gen. John Allen, Kelley's friend and the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
Concerned about the emails, Kelley contacted Humphries in June. Kelley had attended a 2011 FBI Citizens Academy, a program aimed at teaching the public and journalists about what the agency does and how it operates. Humphries had lectured one night about terrorism, according to Natalie Shepherd, a Tampa TV reporter who was there.
Humphries, a former Army captain who worked in military intelligence, thought the emails raised serious concerns because the anonymous author knew the comings and goings of Allen and Petraeus, a former general who had preceded Allen in Afghanistan. His report back to the FBI started the investigation that led to Broadwell and uncovered her affair with Petraeus.
Word of Humphries' concerns about the case reached Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., who relayed them to Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., and arranged for Humphries to speak directly with Cantor about the case on Oct. 27, according to a federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak on the record about an ongoing case and therefore demanded anonymity.
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