text: WASHINGTON — Two and a half weeks after Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced an inquiry into e-mail exchanges between Gen. John R. Allen of the Marines and a socialite in Tampa, Fla., some 15 investigators working seven days a week in the Pentagon inspector general’s office have narrowed their focus to 60 to 70 e-mails that “bear a fair amount of scrutiny,” a defense official said. 
   
   The official did not disclose the content of the e-mails, but senior Pentagon officials have described the voluminous correspondence between General Allen, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, and the socialite, Jill Kelley, as potentially “inappropriate communication.” Law enforcement officials say the e-mails number in the hundreds and cover a period of two and a half years starting in 2010, when General Allen was the deputy commander of Central Command, based in Tampa. 
   
   The investigation, which is delaying and could derail General Allen’s appointment to be the NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, is on a fast track but is unlikely to be completed before the end of the year. Investigations of senior officers in the inspector general’s office usually take about seven months on average, although normally there are only two or three investigators assigned to a case. 
   
   The defense official, who asked not to be named because of the nature of the inquiry, said investigators were trying to determine whether the e-mails violated Defense Department policy, government regulations or military law. They were discovered in the course of an F.B.I. investigation into anonymous e-mails to Ms. Kelley warning her to stay away from David H. Petraeus, then the C.I.A. director. The F.B.I. found that the e-mails had been sent by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s biographer; he admitted to having had an affair with Ms. Broadwell and resigned on Nov. 9. 
   
   Like General Allen, Mr. Petraeus, a retired four-star general, was a social acquaintance of Ms. Kelley when he was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, headquarters of the Central Command. 
   
   The e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley were sent to the Pentagon by the F.B.I. on Nov. 11. “They just forwarded the evidence,” the official said, referring to the F.B.I. “People have to go through and decide if they fit one of three potential violations.” Those violations include misconduct, which could range from inappropriate language on a government computer to adultery, prohibited under military law; more than an incidental use of government property for personal matters; and security breaches. 
   
   The defense official said there was no evidence so far that there had been security violations. General Allen, who is in Kabul planning the drawdown of American forces from Afghanistan, is cooperating with the investigation and has said through associates that he did not commit adultery. The inquiry does not appear to have progressed to interviews with General Allen, 58, who is married and the father of two, or Ms. Kelley, 37, the wife of a cancer surgeon and the mother of three. 
   
   Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who has been nominated to succeed General Allen as part of a regular military rotation, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate before the end of the year and to be in Kabul by February. General Allen is expected to return to the United States at that time, but it is unclear what he will do. 
   
   There have been conflicting accounts of the nature of the e-mails between him and Ms. Kelley. A law enforcement official has described some of them as sexually explicit. Pentagon officials briefed on the matter say they have been told that half a dozen are embarrassing. But General Allen’s associates say they are innocuous and contain little beyond language like “you’re a sweetheart.” 
   
   Although Ms. Kelley’s e-mail correspondence with General Allen has not been made public, dozens of her e-mails to Mayor Bob Buckhorn of Tampa have been released under Florida’s public record laws and refer to her friendship with both General Allen and Mr. Petraeus. 
   
   A year ago, after inviting the mayor to a birthday party for one of her children, she added a casual P.S.: “I’ll be in DC this weekend with Petraeus, but let’s set up a double date when I return!” Last January, she wrote to a mayoral aide, “I’m up in DC having dinner tonight with Gen. Petraeus and Gen. John Allen.” ||||| FILE - In this Nov 13, 2012 file photo Jill Kelley leaves her home in Tampa, Fla. The Tampa socialite at the center of a scandal involving Gen. David Petraeus has hired a top Washington attorney and seems... (Associated Press) 
   
   FILE - In this Nov 13, 2012 file photo Jill Kelley leaves her home in Tampa, Fla. The Tampa socialite at the center of a scandal involving Gen. David Petraeus has hired a top Washington attorney and seems... (Associated Press) 
   
   Jill Kelley wants the world to know that she didn't do anything wrong when she befriended top military brass. 
   
   The Tampa socialite at the center of a scandal involving Gen. David Petraeus has hired a top Washington attorney and seems to be trying to change the narrative about her friendship with the general, her past and her role as an "honorary consul" to the country of South Korea. 
   
   On Tuesday, Kelley's attorney Abbe Lowell released emails, telephone recordings and other material that he and Kelley say proves she never tried to exploit her friendship with Petraeus. 
   
   Lowell wrote to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa, demanding to know why the name of his client and her husband were revealed during the FBI's investigation of Petraeus and his mistress, Paula Broadwell. 
   
   Officials said they were led to Kelley because Broadwell sent her threatening messages to stay away from Petraeus. Lowell addressed this in a letter to W. Stephen Muldrow, the assistant U.S. Attorney in Tampa. 
   
   "You no doubt have seen the tremendous attention that the Kelleys have received in the media," Lowell wrote. "All they did to receive this attention was to let law enforcement know that they had been the subjects of inappropriate and potentially threatening behavior by someone else." 
   
   Lowell added that federal privacy laws could be applicable to the couple's information. 
   
   "These leaks most certainly had to come, at least in part, from government sources," Lowell said. "The earliest and best example of the leaks would be the release to the media of the names of my clients. As you know, there are several rules and laws that seek to protect United States citizens against such leaks." 
   
   The U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa did not return telephone calls for comment Tuesday. 
   
   Kelley, a 37-year-old mother of three, became the focus of national media attention earlier this month. She and her husband, cancer surgeon Scott Kelley, befriended Petraeus and Gen. John Allen when the generals served at U.S. Central Command, which is headquartered at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base. Kelley became an unofficial social ambassador for the base. She was well known around Tampa's social scene and often hosted parties at her waterfront mansion. 
   
   When the FBI investigated Broadwell's emails to Kelley, they also discovered numerous emails between Kelley and the generals. The Pentagon is investigating the emails between her and Allen. Some have called a few of the emails between the two "flirtatious," but sources close to Kelley say they were not. 
   
   The scandal this week cost Kelley her appointment as an honorary consul for the South Korean government, which she had gotten because of her friendship with Petraeus. The Koreans said she had misused the title in her personal business dealings. 
   
   Lowell sent another letter to a businessman for whom Kelley tried to broker a deal with South Korea. 
   
   The businessman, Adam Victor, said he met Kelley in late August at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, where they discussed having Kelley represent Victor's company on a coal-gasification deal it was negotiating with South Korean companies. 
   
   On Aug. 30, according to the documents provided by her attorney, Victor sent Kelley an email saying they were seeking bids from four major Korean firms _ Samsung, Hyundai, GS and GK _ and that he expected the bidding to potentially reach $3 billion. There were several back-and-forth emails through mid-September as Victor and Kelley tried to negotiate a fee for her work, with her saying she was seeking 2 percent of the deal and Victor trying to clarify what she meant. 
   
   There were no other emails until Victor sent one Nov. 9, when Kelley's name surfaced in the Petraeus scandal. He wrote two more times after that before she responded. 
   
   When she finally did, he sent back another email in which he remarked, "When I heard about Petraeus, I thought of you." In a follow-up email, he asked if she was still in a position to help with Korea. She didn't respond. 
   
   In a Nov. 14 interview with the AP, Victor said it had become clear that Kelley was not a skilled negotiator and that he had wasted his time dealing with her. 
   
   In a letter released Tuesday and dated Nov. 21, Lowell accused Victor of seeking his "15 minutes of fame" by talking to the news media about his client. Lowell said Victor had defamed Kelley with his clients and misstated her desire for 2 percent of the profits by saying she wanted 2 percent of the entire deal. Lowell also accused Victor of unspecified inappropriate behavior toward Kelley. 
   
   "If you want to continue seeking publicity for yourself, that is one thing," Lowell wrote to Victor. "However, if you do that by maligning a person, that is something else." He then accused Victor of casting Kelley in a false light and suggested his attorney contact Lowell to discuss the matter. 
   
   Victor told the AP late Tuesday that he never accused Kelley of wrongdoing, but had just said she was naive and not an experienced negotiator. He also said his female assistant was present every time he met with Kelley. 
   
   "It's not a crime to be a novice," Victor said. "I don't know why they are talking to me." 
   
   The third letter was sent from Kelley's attorney Tuesday to the Attorney Consumer Assistance Program, which handles complaints about lawyers on behalf of the Florida Bar. In that letter, Lowell accused Tampa attorney Barry Cohen of breaking attorney-client privilege by publicly speaking about conversations he had with Kelley in 2009 while representing her in a dispute she had with a tenant. In those conversations, Lowell said, they discussed her friendships with various military personnel. 
   
   Kelley's sister, Natalie Khawam, once worked as an attorney in Cohen's firm and later sued him for sexual harassment and breach of contract. In court responses, Cohen said Khawam "has a judicially documented recent history and continuing propensity for the commission of perjury." 
   
   Cohen said Tuesday evening that he had not seen Lowell's complaint letter and that Kelley had "lost the battle in the court of public opinion." 
   
   "No matter how many high-priced lawyers and publicists she employs, she has been exposed for what she is," he said. 
   
   Prior to Tuesday, Kelley, her attorney and her publicist had only publicly addressed the situation once, in a statement to the news media when the scandal first broke. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Spencer reported from Miami. 
   
   Kelley's lawyer also sent letters to a New York businessman who accused her of incompetence in her work trying to set up a deal he was negotiating with South Korean companies and a Tampa attorney who accused her of name-dropping and of being a social climber; 
   
   Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamaralush
target: – The Pentagon inspector general’s office didn't take the Gen. John Allen-Jill Kelley email exchange lightly, assigning 15 investigators toiling seven days a week to review the thousands of pages of documents. They've now sussed out between 60 and 70 emails that "bear a fair amount of scrutiny," according to a defense official, who didn't elaborate on what those emails might contain. The New York Times reports the purpose of the investigation, which likely won't conclude until 2013, is to determine if one of three violations occurred: misconduct (ie, adultery or inappropriate language), substantial use of government property for personal matters, or a security breach. Those investigators aren't the only ones getting busy. A previously silent Kelley is now defending herself, through her attorney. Abbe Lowell, a big-time Washington lawyer who has represented Bill Clinton and John Edwards, yesterday released emails, phone recordings, and more evidence that, he says, prove Kelley did not try to exploit her relationship with David Petraeus. He also sent out three letters connected to the scandal, the AP reports: He asked the US Attorney's Office in Tampa why Kelley's name was released in the first place, adding that federal privacy laws could apply. He wrote another letter to a businessman Kelley was trying to help make a deal with South Korea, before she lost her honorary consul status. The businessman, Adam Victor, has said in interviews that Kelley was not a skilled negotiator, and Lowell says he defamed her in an attempt to bask in his "15 minutes of fame." In a letter to the Attorney Consumer Assistance Program (which fields complaints about lawyers), Lowell accuses attorney Barry Cohen of talking publicly about conversations he had with Kelley in 2009, thus breaking attorney-client privilege.