Jill Kelley was never a real consul for South Korea – but now she’s not a fake one, either.
A senior Korean official accused her of “peddling influence” in a way that was inappropriate, (probably has something to do with that whole “give me money and I’ll get you business in Korea” scheme she had going, and she lost her “honorary consul” title and the $2,500 a year that came along with it.
Wow, it’s awfully easy to blow over that house of cards, isn’t it? In case you’re not remembering her name, Kelley is the Florida socialite whose complaint about getting threatening emails brought former CIA Director David Petraeus’ career to a skidding halt.
Kelley was so proud of her links with the South Koreans. She got the title thanks to her friendship with the country’s ambassador and had a custom license plate made for her car to brag about it.
Kelley had been a social climbing Tampa housewife who worked as an “unpaid social liaison” at MacDill Air Force Base when the whole Petraeus mess came crashing down. Now she’s not allowed on the base without an escort, and she’s lost her honorary consul title — what’s a housewife to do?
The Tampa doctor’s wife got her title after she became friends with former ambassador Han Duk-Soo, who apparently wasn’t very pleased that his name got mentioned in the whole Petraeus mess. He’d alluded to her links with senior military officials like Petraeus and Gen. John Allen, who later also got dragged in when it was revealed he and Kelley were exchanging thousands of emails.
But all that scandal is just a drop in the bucket according to what she’d tried to pull with her honorary title. South Korea Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kyou-hyun said Kelley was being dropped because she “sought to be involved in commercial projects and peddle influence. It’s also inappropriate as honorary consul.”
Seems a New York businessman someone introduced Kelley to him during the Republican National Convention in Tampa that her friendship with Petraeus would help facilitate a no-bid deal with South Korea on a coal-gasification project.
Adam Victor, president and CEO of TransGas Development Systems, said Kelley said she could help broker the deal directly with the South Korean president, and she expected a two-percent commission.
Oh well, guess she won’t be able to try to get diplomatic protection, like she did when she called 911 to get their help keeping the media away.
I’m an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability, so they should not be able to cross my property. ‘I don’t know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well, because that’s against the law to cross my property because, you know, it’s inviolable.
Yeah, right, lady. Too bad you embarrassed Gen. Allen. Maybe he could have called you in an airstrike.