David Petraeus: could the celebrated general and scandal-hit ex-CIA boss be Donald Trump's Secretary of State?

Petraeus pleaded guilty to precisely the kind of crime that Trump tried to pin on Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign

David Petraeus arrives to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Manhattan's Trump Tower on Monday ((Getty Images))

Retired US Army General David Petraeus, now considered a leading contender for the role of Secretary of State in the Trump administration, is a decorated military commander who led US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan – and thoroughly modernised the way America wages war.

He is also a scandal-hit former CIA chief, who resigned from the agency in 2012 after an extra-marital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, was revealed. Last year, he accepted a plea agreement in which he admitted sharing classified documents with her and lying to the FBI.

Thus, Petraeus admitted to precisely the kind of crime that Donald Trump tried to pin on his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for the duration of the 2016 presidential campaign.

After meeting with Petraeus at Trump Tower on Monday, the President-elect tweeted that he was “very impressed” by the 64-year-old four-star general, which puts him in the same company as two previous Commanders-in-Chief.

It was George W Bush who picked Petraeus to lead the so-called “surge” of US troops in Iraq in 2007, which allowed Bush to claim a kind of victory in the long and messy conflict, and which made Petraeus the most celebrated military leader of his generation.

In 2010, President Barack Obama tapped Petraeus to command the US-led international forces in Afghanistan. A year later, Petraeus retired from the Army after being appointed the new director of the CIA. His first civilian job would be short-lived, however.

At the time, Broadwell was working on a biography of Petraeus, who was her mentor before he was her lover. The book, All In: The Education of David Petraeus, would be released in January 2012, shortly before the truth about its composition came out.

In August 2011, Petraeus had given Broadwell eight black notebooks that contained classified information from his time as a top military commander, including intelligence secrets, war strategies, the names of covert operatives and even his meetings with the President.

Petraeus, who had said in a recorded conversation that the notebooks contained “highly classified” material, at first denied having given them to Broadwell in interviews with the FBI. Threatened with a criminal trial, in 2015 he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour: mishandling classified material.

A federal court fined Petraeus $100,000 and put him on probation for two years. Some Republicans pointed to his case in relation to Ms Clinton’s careless handling of some classified information on her private email server when she was Secretary of State.

But FBI Director James Comey, who found no cause to prosecute Ms Clinton, explained the difference between the two cases at a congressional committee hearing in July. Unlike Ms Clinton, he said, Petraeus “admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do.”

Trump appeared not to appreciate the distinction, telling supporters at an October rally that Petraeus’s life had been “destroyed for doing far, far less” than Clinton.

Since exiting public life in disgrace in 2012, Petraeus has worked as chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which analyses global trends for the New York Investment firm KKR & Co.

The Obama administration has continued to seek his counsel, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday. “Obviously, maintaining any sort of informal advisory role is a lot different from being nominated secretary of State for the United States,” Earnest said.

Petraeus told the BBC last week that he would willingly accept a role in the Trump administration. His meeting with Trump comes amid the President-elect’s increasingly public deliberations over whom to pick for the most prominent post in his cabinet.

Trump is set to have a private dinner with Mitt Romney on Tuesday, Politico reported. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee is also under consideration to lead the State Department, despite his very public criticism of Mr Trump during the campaign – and despite the opposition of many top Trump loyalists to his prospective appointment.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Republican Senator Bob Corker, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are also said to be in the frame for the role of America's top diplomat. Another General, James Mattis, is thought to be a potential candidate for Secretary of Defence.

Speaking to reporters after what he said was “a very good conversation” with Trump, Petraeus said the businessman had demonstrated “a great grasp of a variety of the challenges that are out there and some of the opportunities as well.”