Paula Broadwell in Charlotte, N.C. on January 14, 2012
Just a few days after Barack Obama was re-elected as President of the United States, General David Petraeus — the highly respected director of the CIA and former commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan — announced his resignation, citing an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. But that’s where the story begins. Within days, a half-dozen other characters emerged: a Tampa socialite and her identical twin, a dogged FBI agent and another high-ranking general are all being investigated for breaches of security. Meanwhile, members of Congress asked why they were the last to know of the scandal, and conspiracy theorists questioned the timing of the general’s resignation, as it occurred just before he was slated to testify before Congress on the Benghazi consulate attack (the general testified a week later). The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating the affair to determine if Broadwell did indeed have knowledge of classified information and how she obtained it.