Photograph by Ken Cedeno/Bloomberg

Retired Army General David Petraeus, pictured as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, in 2007. Photo by Ken Cedeno / Bloomberg

KKR & Co.  the private-equity firm run by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, is in discussions with former Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus about a role at the company, according to a person with knowledge of the talks.

It hasn’t been decided yet what role he would have at KKR, said the person, who requested anonymity because the discussions are private. Petraeus and Kravis are friends and talk often, according to the person.

Petraeus, 60, resigned from the CIA on Nov. 9 after a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered evidence of an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, the author of a biography about the former commander of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq entitled “All In.” Last week, City University of New York named Petraeus a visiting professor starting Aug. 1.

Kristi Huller, a spokeswoman for New York-based KKR, declined to comment on the possible hiring. Robert Barnett, a lawyer for Petraeus, didn’t respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

KKR has more than 25 senior advisers, who help the firm find and evaluate investment opportunities, according to its website. Some of them advise KKR-owned companies or serve on their boards.

The firm last year named former Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer John Mack as a senior adviser to help make KKR “smarter investors,” Kravis said at the time. Other KKR advisers include Honeywell International Inc. (HON) CEO David Cote, former Caterpillar Inc. CEO James Owens and Qantas Airways Ltd. Chairman Leigh Clifford.

Private-equity firms pool money from investors including pension plans and endowments with a mandate to buy companies within about five to six years, then sell them and return the funds with a profit after about 10 years. The firms, which use debt to finance the deals and amplify returns, typically charge an annual management fee equal to 1.5 percent to 2 percent of committed funds and keep 20 percent of profit from investments.

Kravis, Roberts and their partner Jerome Kohlberg Jr. started KKR in 1976, joining a small group of firms doing leveraged buyouts. Kohlberg left the firm in 1987. Today the industry manages about $3 trillion of assets, according to research firm Preqin Ltd. KKR oversees $78 billion, investing in buyouts, energy, real estate and hedge funds.

See the full report on Petraeus and KKR at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Petraeus ‘All In’ for Private Equity? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

General David Petraeus speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for reappointment and commander of the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan in Washington, D.C.

First it was Mark Sanford running for Congress. Then it was Anthony Weiner floating a New York City mayoral campaign. Now, David Petraeus is putting himself out there post-scandal — as both a university professor and one lucky philanthropist’s work0ut buddy.

Former CIA Director and retired Army General Petraeus is joining Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York as a public policy visiting professor, the university announced yesterday. He starts Aug. 1.

“I look  forward to leading a seminar at Macaulay that examines the developments that could position the United States – and our North American partners – to lead the world out of the current global economic slowdown,” Petreaus, who has a doctorate from Princeton University, said in a statement.

The new professor is also the advertised prize of a virtual raffle hosted by Omaze, a for-profit crowdfunding website that raises money for charities. The raffle offers a “grueling” workout with Petraeus on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The website, which deems Petraeus “the celebrity” of the “once-in-a-lifetime experience,” is raising money for the Mission Continues, an organization that awards community service fellowships to recent veterans, according to its website.

There’s no fitness requirement noted on Omaze, but participants might want to read up on Petraeus’ six-minute miles before entering.  Petraeus has had plenty of time for his rigorous workouts since he resigned as CIA director last year after the disclosure of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

“Test your physical limits during an intense workout with the man that was once in charge of all U.S. armed forces’ foreign operations before discussing military strategy over a well-deserved coffee,” the website advertises. It adds that the workout will occur “in late summer or early fall 2013″ and makes no mention of his fall from grace.

A contribution of just $10 will enter a donor into the drawing, so Omaze users don’t have to go all in.

Original post is Crowdfunding Site Offers Professor Petraeus as Prize by Political Capital.

Photograph by Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images

The new website of Hillary Clinton in Washington.

The president tends to hog the headlines when he shows up at the Gridiron Club’s spring dinner — as President Barack Obama has done only twice since moving to the White House.

This year, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal managed to upstage Obama.

The press, however — OK, media, social or otherwise — also gets a few licks in at an annual event where, according to the 128-year-old club’s standing rules, the humor can “singe,” but must never “burn.”

To the accompaniment of the red-jacketed U.S. Marine Band Saturday night at the Renaissance Washington Hotel, the white-tie audience heard some serious singeing in the singing of satirical numbers by members of the invitation-only Gridiron and a few professional ringers in the chorus.

Clarence Page, longtime and prize-winning Washington columnist for the Chicago Tribune, appeared in the persona of Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

“Nothing you can say could tear me away from my gun,” Page-LaPierre sang to the tune of “My Girl.”

If you hate the NRA, tell my Walther PPK.
You’re flirting with disaster, with my Bushmaster.
And when pigs start to fly, my cold dead hands you’ll pry — from my gun.

“I was the very model of a four-star CENTCOM general,” sang the ringer-singer posing as retired Army Gen. David Petraeus:

It really all began because I had a way of mentoring,
Aphrodite knocked upon my door and then I let her in.
I still just don’t believe it but I saw it with my own two eyes,
to think it all began with just a simple form of exercise.

Even the formerly tweeting and now retired Pope Benedict XVI was fodder for satire in the spoof entitled “Give Me That Online Religion.”

Sen. Marco Rubio got the pop-singer Ricky Martin treatment — “Livin’ La Vida Loca” became “Savin’ the Party Loca” in a duo with “Chris Christie”:

Upside, inside out I’m savin’ the party loca,
I’ll push and pull you round, savin’ the party loca.
We want our base to grow, we need skin the color mocha.
Young and old come on — savin’ the party loca.

For House Speaker John Boehner, it seemed, only “Les Miserables” would suffice:

Master of the House,
Rayburn I am not,
House GOP caucus is a sorry lot.
Hurtling off the cliff, gotta watch our backs.
Grover N will get us if we raise a tax.

Washington’s lobbyists found something in common with the press, in the delivery of a scene from “Tommy,” with a song about the president, aka Pinball Wizard:

Ever since November Seventh,
it’s settled like a pall.
On Congress, on the press corps,
From K Street to the Mall.
We never got this feeling from any other pol.
That mighty Obama don’t like us much at all.

Debt ceilings? To the tune of “Feelings”: “Ceilings, they’re coming back, debt ceilings…”

And to “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious”:

Mandatory legislative budget sequestration,
across the board affecting every sector of our nation,
dairy goats and pleasure boats and civil aviation,
mandatory legislative budget sequestration.

With no apologies to the Beatles, Hillary Clinton was played as more concerned about 69 than 64:

Got a bit older, growing my hair, gained a pound or two.
Going home to vegetate in Chapaqua, I just want to be a gradma.
 It was more than a case of Beghazi flu, still I’ll be just fine.
Will you select me, will you elect me, when I’m 69?

There was an homage to women in the military — “I Will Survive” — a lament about the polarization of Washington — “The Weight” — and a run at Vice President Joe Biden — “I’m Not Barack.”

Who needs Barack? We got Joe Biden.
Yeah Barack he’s the man, but Joe Biden, he’s your guy.

Yet, as a survivor of the Sixties, this guest of the Gridiron found particular pleasure in the rendition of Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women.”

Everybody must get droned.
We drone cause we got tired of Iraq
We drone you cause we got some drones in stock.
We drone because we haven’t got a clue.
Yeah, Barack’s got bigger drones than W. 

We don’t know where the next insurrection might be grown.
So everybody must get droned.

Despite the fun that Obama poked at a dinner and show notorious for its length —  the president, opening with a joke about the budget sequestration cutting his tails, said: “Of course, there’s one thing in Washington that didn’t get cut — the length of this dinner yet more proof that the sequester makes no sense” — it was all done by little after 10:30 pm.

Eastern Standard Time, that is.

The cast lost an hour to sleep it all off.

Original post is Gridiron’s ‘Hillary’: ‘Will You Select Me, Will You Elect Me, When I’m 69?’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, with his golden retriever dog Bravo, during an interview at the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today suggested his dog Bravo turned out to be a better keeper of secrets than David Petraeus, who resigned in disgrace as CIA director last month after acknowledging a sexual affair.

Panetta appeared surprised when asked at the National Press Club why Petraeus had to resign instead of accepting a lesser punishment.

“In this town, with that kind of e-mail, do you think he could have survived as director of the CIA? I don’t think so,” Panetta said during a luncheon appearance. The Petraeus affair was exposed after the FBI discovered e-mails he wrote to his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with whom he had an extramarital affair.

While Petraeus couldn’t keep the affair secret, Panetta touted the discretion of his own golden retriever, who he said sat in on many of the top-secret meetings that focused on planning the raid that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden last year. Panetta was CIA director when the raid occurred.

The dog “used to come to the office when I was CIA director,” Panetta recalled. “And Bravo sat in on almost all of the meetings involving the operations against bin Laden. And you know, to this day, he hasn’t told a damn soul what happened.”

Original post is Panetta Says His Dog, Unlike Petraeus, Proved Soul of Discretion by Political Capital.

Photograph by ISAF via Getty Images

Gen. Davis Petraeus with biographer Paula Broadwell, co-author of 'All In: The Education of General David Petraeus' on July 13, 2011.

Paula Broadwell, the biographer and mistress of former CIA Director David Petraeus, will not face charges for cyber-stalking, according to federal prosecutors.

In a Dec. 14 letter to Broadwell’s lawyer, U.S. Attorney Robert O’Neill advised the West Point graduate that “no federal charges will be brought in the Middle District of Florida relating to alleged acts of cyber stalking.”

The federal investigation that led to Petraeus’s admission of an affair and resignationl was sparked by harassing e-mails received by Jill Kelley, a Florida woman who associated with the retired four-star general. Those e-mails, an FBI investigation discovered, came from accounts associated with Broadwell, according to law enforcement officials. The investigation also uncovered the relationship between Petraeus and Broadwell, which both admitted to during FBI interviews and Petraeus acknowledged in his resignation letter to CIA employees.

“We are pleased with the decision, and are pleased with the professionalism of the Tampa United States Attorney’s Office, particularly Assistant United States Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow,” Robert Muse, Broadwell’s lawyer, said in a statement.

The letter does not address whether officials are still looking into Broadwell’s possession of classified documents, a large number of which were discovered by the FBI when agents searched her computers, according to the law enforcement officials.

Broadwell told the FBI in interviews that the classified information did not come from Petraeus, the official said.

Last month, Petraeus, 60, resigned and admitted in a statement to having an affair. During his career, he rose to the rank of four-star general and led the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring to become head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Broadwell, 40, graduated with academic, fitness and leadership honors from West Point, according to the Penguin Speakers Bureau. During more than 15 years of military service, she has served with the U.S. intelligence community, Special Operations Command and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces, according to the speakers bureau.

Original post is Broadwell: No Cyber-Stalking Charge by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

Secretarty of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew, watch President Barack Obama at the NATO Summit in Chicago.

There’s nothing like a sex scandal to weaken the standing of a Washington power broker.

Take David Petraeus, the former CIA director and a retired star general of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The once-widely admired Petraeus was slated to place in the top 10 of the inaugural Top 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense, released today by the sister trade publications Defense News and Army Times.

The preliminary ranking had to be revised after Petraeus admitted to a sexual affair and resigned his CIA post. He plunged to No. 100 on the list.

That rating makes him less influential than Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, who has been charged with leaking classified documents to the Wikileaks anti-secrecy website. Manning came in at No. 60.

Marine General John Allen, the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, who got caught up in the Petraeus investigation, also fell down the list after e-mails he wrote to a Tampa, Florida, socialite surfaced as part of the probe. He dropped from the top 10 to No. 34.

And then there’s Christopher Kubasik, who had been tapped to head Lockheed Martin Corp. He was sure to make the list as head of the world’s largest defense contractor– until he suddenly resigned last month after acknowledging a relationship with a subordinate.

“Instead of having the bully pulpit afforded to the chief of the world’s biggest defense contractor, he became a nonfactor, tumbling right off the list,” Defense News said in an article explaining its results.

Petraeus, while coming in dead last, nonetheless made the cut.

“Petraeus survives at No. 100 because of his many (accolades) throughout the military and because history shows that rarely does such an aggressive, ambitious and dynamic leader remain in the shadows for long,” the paper said.

So who topped the list?

Drumroll please…

White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon is No. 1, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta comes in second and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton comes in third.

Original post is Defense and Scandal: Reshuffling Top 100 Most Influential in the Field by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey briefs the media at the Pentagon.

Never mind Hollywood’s Golden Globe nominations.

Defense industry bigwigs in Washington want to know who made The List.

Two sister trade publications, Defense News and Army Times, are compiling their first Top 100 Most Influential People in Defense.

The list, to be unveiled Monday, is the brainchild of Richard Sandza, managing editor of Army Times.

“We’ve had some inquiries from the defense world, not necessarily from the Pentagon, trying to gather a little intelligence on who’s on our list, what we’ve been up to,” Sandza says

They haven’t learned much.

“We’ve run ads in our newspapers saying it’s classified,” he says.

Sandza did offer a few non-surprising tidbits: Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the list. The rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the list as a group.

Yet most of the most influential don’t wear a military uniform.

“There are 945 generals and admirals in the military,” Sandza says. “Fewer than 25 made our list.”

The list, which was whittled down from about 200 people selected by the papers’ staff, had to be revised in the wake of two recent scandals, he says. Former CIA Director David Petraeus resigned after acknowledging a sexual affair. The Petraeus scandal also triggered an investigation into Marine General John Allen, the commander of forces in Afghanistan. At the same time, Christopher Kubasik, who had been tapped to head Lockheed Martin Corp., resigned after acknowledging a relationship with a subordinate.

“All of them fell down our list and some of them fell off,” Sandza says.

Which ones survived? `

`You’ve got to tune in Monday to find out,” he says.

Original post is Generals Slide, Fall From `The List’ — Defense Industry Awaits Full Roster by Political Capital.

President Barack Obama with Speaker of the House John Boehner during a meeting on Nov. 16 to discuss deficit reduction. Photograph by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images

In “The Final Problem,” Sherlock Holmes battled his nemisis Professor Moriarty to the death on a cliff. President Barack Obama meets House Speaker John Boenhner for talks over the “fiscal cliff” today in a confronation that hopefully won’t end as tragically.

Tax questions will be at the forefront when Obama holds his first face-to-face conversation with Boehner since winning re-election. They’ll be joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in discussing how to avoid automatic tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to take effect early next year.

After getting too close to the edge, former CIA Director David Petraeus is on Capitol Hill this morning, meeting behind closed doors with congressional committees probing the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The House may take the plunge and vote on permanent normal trade relations with Russia today before members return to their home districts for the Thanksgiving holiday recess. The Senate is already out, scheduled to return to work on Nov. 26.

Original post is Washington Daybook: Living on the Edge by Political Capital.

President Barack Obama arrives in the East Room of the White House on Nov. 14, 2012, for his first post election day news conference. Photograph by Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

On Day One of his presidency, Republican Mitt Romney liked to say in his TV ads, he’d start taking care of all sorts of business. He promised an ambitious agenda, starting with the repeal of “Obama-care.”

On Day One after re-election, last Wednesday, President Barack Obama suddenly found a lot more on his plate than his own agenda for his second term.

That’s the day he learned that retired Army Gen. David Petraeus had a problem at the CIA: An FBI investigation of e-mail traffic uncovering an extramarital affair between Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Within days, he’d accept Petraeus’ resignation.

By Friday, he’d learn that his nominee for Supreme Allied Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe, Marine Gen. John Allen, also had an e-mail problem, with the Defense Department’s inspector general investigating what the FBI had found in Allen’s e-correspondence with Jill Kelley, the Tampa socialite whose initial complaint of e-mail harassment initiated the FBI probe that ensnared Petraeus. The general maintains he has done nothing wrong, yet his confirmation hearing is on hold.

And now Israel is engaged in combat with Hamas in the Gaza Strip — Obama has been on the phone  this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (the leader who had gotten fairly cozy with Romney during the election campaign).

Asked at his news conference yesterday when he might schedule that meeting he suggested on Election Night that he would hold with Romney to discuss ways of working together, Obama said: “We haven’t scheduled something yet.”

“I think everybody forgets that the election was only a week ago,” the president said, adding with a laugh: “I know I’ve forgotten… I forgot on Wednesday.”

Original post is Obama: Election Soon `Forgotten’ by Political Capital.

“I have no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security,” the president said at a White House news conference, asked also if he was surprised to have learned of the inquiry only recently.  “The FBI has their own protocols on how they proceed.”

Obama, who accepted Petraeus’ resignation from the CIA last week, did not learn of the FBI probe that uncovered the affair until the day after his own re-election, according to the White House.

“General Petraeus had an extraordinary career,” said Obama, who sent the four-star general to Afghanistan to run the war there and made him director of the CIA. “He served this country with great distinction… By his own assessment, he did not meet the standards that he felt were necessary at the CIA” in the relationship with the general’s biographer that was revealed by the FBI.

“We’re not supposed to meddle in criminal investigations,” he said, “and that’s been our practice.”

Original post is Obama: No Security Breach in Petraeus Affair by Political Capital.