Kurtz talks Jilly Kelley exclusive interview

Howard Kurtz, Newsweek-Daily Beast Washington Bureau Chief and CNN Reliable Sources Host, details his exclusive interview with Jill Kelley, who was at the center of the General David Petraeus and General John Allen scandal involving Paula Broadwell.

Kurtz says, “It was a very emotional interview, Soledad as you might imagine, as Jill Kelley talked about the nightmare that her life has become. And how everything changed for her when she started receiving those anonymous emails that we now know were from Paula Broadwell. She used words… like blackmail and extortion. She said she was terrified. She would not tell me the exact nature of the threats. I did not get to see the emails. But she said she felt she had no choice but to protect her herself and her family by going to the FBI and that of course started the chain of events you referenced.”

Kurtz continues, “Jill Kelley told me this wrenching story about having a birthday party for her seven year old daughter, which was a couple days after this story exploded, Soledad, in the media and how 70 paparazzi were on her front line. She felt like her entire family life had been disrupted… She blames the media for reporting a lot of lies and half truths… She says she has never met Paula Broadwell and that she couldn’t even tell – because what she calls threatening emails were ambiguously worded – that these were from a woman or that there was any jealousy involved potentially involving her friendship, as she describes it, with David Petraeus.”

Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien airs weekday mornings from 7-9am ET on CNN.