Report: Petraeus will testify on Benghazi

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Former CIA Director David Petraeus will testify Thursday before a Senate panel about the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a senator said.

The Senate Intelligence Committee hearing is one of several formal congressional inquiries into the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other diplomatic employees were killed.

A senior senator confirmed to NBC News Wednesday Petraeus would testify before the panel.

Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA last week after admitting an extra-marital affair.

Earlier, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said it was important for the panel to hear from Petraeus, The Hill reported.

FBI Director Robert Mueller met Wednesday with members of the House Intelligence Committee, The Hill reported. Neither Mueller nor committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., would comment on the meeting.

Rogers and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the top Democrat on the committee, spent much of Wednesday in talks with Mueller and Mike Morell, acting director of the CIA, The Hill said.

President Barack Obama said at a White House news conference Wednesday he is "withholding judgment" about the FBI's decision not to inform the White House and Congress that it was investigating the possible hacking of Petraeus' personal email account.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the President Barack Obama didn't learn about the Petraeus affair until after the election.

The complicated web entangling the former CIA director and his biographer Paula Broadwell has been expanding at a dizzying pace.

The scandal widened to include Petraeus' successor as commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, and an unidentified FBI agent who sent shirtless photos of himself to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley.

Kelley was the one who first drew attention to the Petraeus affair by complaining that Broadwell sent her threatening emails.

The FBI has turned over to the Pentagon tens of thousands of pages of email exchanges between Allen and Kelley. As a result, Allen's nomination to become NATO's supreme allied commander is being withheld by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, CNN reported.

Panetta said the move was "a prudent measure until we can determine what the facts are and we will."

A U.S. official told CNN many of the Allen-Kelley emails may have been about routine business that both were involved in at U.S. Central Command.

At the same time, the FBI is making a new push to determine how Broadwell obtained classified files that were found in her possession during a late-night raid on her North Carolina home, The Washington Post reported.

Both Petraeus and Broadwell have denied to investigators that Petraeus was the source of any classified information, officials said.

The FBI inquiry of Broadwell and the new Pentagon probe of Allen create the potential for more evidence to surface and the scandal to expand further.