Report: FBI employee told Rep. Cantor about David Petraeus affair

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) says he was told in late October about allegations that then-CIA Director David Petraeus was having an extramarital affair. 

The GOP lawmaker said his office was notified about the charges from an FBI employee, who raised questions about a possible security breach, according to a report from the New York Times published Saturday.

“I was contacted by an F.B.I. employee concerned that sensitive, classified information may have been compromised and made certain [FBI] Director [Robert] Mueller was aware of these serious allegations and the potential risk to our national security,” said Cantor in a statement to the Times. 

{mosads}The report says Cantor spoke to the FBI employee after being told by Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) that someone at the agency had concerns about national security and wanted to speak to a congressional leader about the allegations.  

Cantor says his office notified the FBI about the conversation with the agency employee.

Cantor’s disclosures is likely to raise further questions about the FBI’s role investigating Petraeus, who stepped down from atop the CIA on Friday, and when members of the administration and other lawmakers first learned about the affair. 

Reports said the FBI first learned about the extramarital affair while investigating a complaint form a woman close to Petraeus who said she had received harassing emails from the director’s alleged mistress. 

Those emails were traced, by the FBI, to Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’s biographer. FBI officers learned about the affair from the email exchanges between Petraeus and Broadwell. 

Officials told The Washington Post on Saturday that they feared that Petraeus’s private email account may have been compromised and national security information put at risk. After further investigation, the FBI did not believe any secrets had been leaked, but notified Petraeus two weeks ago about what they discovered and said no criminal charges would be filed. 

Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. Afghanistan forces, headed the CIA since September 2011. 

In his resignation letter on Friday, he said he “showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.”

“Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the president graciously accepted my resignation,” Petraeus wrote.  

The White House has said they were notified on Wednesday night that Petraeus might resign over an affair and that Obama was told Thursday morning.