Retired Gen. and ex-CIA director David Petraeus formally apologized Tuesday for his affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, which ultimately led him to resign in 2012 and plead guilty to charges of supplying Broadwell with classified information.
Petraeus made his remarks during testimony on U.S. policy in the Middle East before the Senate Armed Services Committee, noting he felt he should begin with an apology by saying it was "one that I have offered before but nonetheless one that I want to repeat to you and to the American public."
"Four years ago, I made a serious mistake, one that brought discredit on me and pain to those closest to me," Petraeus said. "It was a violation of the trust placed in me and a breach of the values to which I'd been committed throughout my life. There's nothing I can do to undo what I did. I can only say again how sorry I am to those I let down and strive to go forward with a greater sense of humility and purpose, and with gratitude to those who stood with me during a very difficult chapter in my life."
Petraeus, the former U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, reportedly began his affair with Broadwell in 2011, when she was working his biography All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. He was sentenced in April to two years' probation and fined $100,000 for mishandling classified information:
The retired four-star general admitted to giving the information to his mistress, who was writing his biography. He pleaded guilty in federal court in Charlotte, North Carolina, to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.
The judge raised the fine from the $40,000 recommended in a plea deal, noting it needed to be higher to be punitive.