Petraeusgate: FBI Investigation Began In August–Who’s Lying?

Orin S. Kerr, a George Washington University law professor who specializes in computer crime issues, said it was “surprising that they would devote the resources” to investigating who was behind a half-dozen harassing e-mails.

“The F.B.I. gets a lot of tips, and investigating any one case requires an agent or a few agents to spend a lot of time,” he said. “They can’t do this for every case, and the issue is, why this one case?”

Still, Mr. Kerr — a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s computer crimes and intellectual property section from 1998 to 2001 — said it was likely that several factors, in addition to the Petraeus connection, made the complaint stand out. Ms. Kelly was fairly prominent in Tampa social circles and had previously had dealings with the F.B.I. agent who took her complaint. READMOREHERE