WASHINGTON - A CIA sex scandal seemingly torn from the pages of a best-selling spy novel is enthralling the United States despite the aftermath of a presidential election that has spurred a substantive debate about the changing face of America.
Divided as they may be politically, however, Americans are united in their fascination with the scandal engulfing David Petraeus, the director of the world-renowned spy agency who quit last week after admitting an extra-marital affair.
The relationship was revealed when the FBI discovered his lover, Paula Broadwell, had sent threatening emails to yet another woman, Jill Kelley — who insists she's a close family friend of Petraeus and his wife, not a second paramour. The messages warned the Tampa woman to stay away from Petraeus.
According to a blog written by Petraeus's adult daughter, Anne, Kelley and her husband were close to the Petraeuses. The two families and their children often spent Christmas and Thanksgiving together in recent years.
Kelley complained to the FBI when the emails began appearing in her inbox over the summer.
Petraeus, 60, was reportedly stunned to learn his lover was behind the harassment of the woman she believed to be a romantic rival.
The celebrated four-star general and Broadwell, 40, had known one another for six years, but their affair didn't start until after he left the army last year, said Steve Boylan, a retired Army colonel and close friend of Petraeus's.
While there have been reports that the romance began earlier in 2011, Boylan told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday that it began a year ago — shortly after Petraeus took over as head of the CIA — and ended about four months ago.
Broadwell spent time in Afghanistan in 2010, while Petraeus was still serving there as the top U.S. commander. He granted her wide access as she worked on her glowing biography on him, with its suddenly titillating title "All In."
"This was poor judgment on his part," Boylan said.
"It was a colossal mistake; he knows that, he's acknowledged that. Now he and his family are going to try to move forward and past this, which we know is going to be hard work, and it's going to take time," he said.
Holly Petraeus, the general's wife of almost 40 years, "is not exactly pleased right now," Boylan added.
Little wonder. News of the affair has uncorked an avalanche of sordid gossip items and photos of David Petraeus and his erstwhile lover, the married North Carolina mother of two young boys.
Emails between the general and Broadwell, uncovered by the FBI as they investigated Kelley's complaint, reportedly contain details about "sex under a desk" and reveal Broadwell's nickname for Petraeus: "Peaches."
An 18-month-old news photo has also become a sensation.
As the general and his wife arrived at a Senate hearing into his nomination as head of the CIA in June 2011, Broadwell was captured by news cameras beaming up adoringly at Petraeus in a shot reminiscent of Monica Lewinsky's loving public gaze at former president Bill Clinton more than 15 years ago.
Adding to Petraeus's woes?
It appears Broadwell, a former Army officer who reportedly fancied herself Petraeus's gate-keeper, may have revealed classified information about an alleged CIA prison in Benghazi in a recent speech to her alma mater, the University of Denver.
In the address on Oct. 26 — weeks after she admitted the affair to the FBI and after her romance with Petraeus was supposedly over — Broadwell claimed the CIA was holding several Libyan militia members prisoner in Benghazi.
Broadwell suggested that's why militants launched the attack in September on the American consulate in Benghazi that ultimately killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. envoy to Libya, and three other Americans.
"Now, I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually ... taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back," she said.
The CIA denies holding any prisoners at the annex, telling reporters that Broadwell's claims are false.
"The CIA has not had detention authority since January 2009 ... Any suggestion that the agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless," the agency said in a statement.
Questions are also swirling in D.C. about who knew what, when.
Lawmakers and other officials are insistent that now, more than ever, Petraeus must testify before hotly anticipated congressional hearings into the eruption of anti-American violence in Libya on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Petraeus had originally been scheduled to appear before a House of Representatives committee on Wednesday. Instead, acting director Mike Morrell is set to testify.
Michael Hayden, a former CIA director who served under George W. Bush, said Monday it's important that Petraeus answers questions soon about Libya.
"Petraeus will have a personal insight into this because he did visit Libya after the attack," he said. "I think he owes it to the committees to share those insights with them."
Lawmakers agree.
Democrat Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate intelligence committee, also said she's prepared to subpoena a report on Benghazi written by Petraeus following his recent trip to Libya.
"I believe that there is a trip report. We have to ask to see the trip report. One person tells me he has read it," she said on MSNBC on Monday.
"And then we try to get it, and they tell me it hasn't been done. That's unacceptable. We are entitled to this trip report, and if we have to go to the floor of the Senate on a subpoena, we will do just that."
Feinstein added that President Barack Obama should have been told much earlier about the FBI's investigation into Petraeus. Feinstein and other legislators are also calling for a probe into the FBI's handling of the case.
Eric Cantor, the majority leader of the House of Representatives, is one of several high-profile officials who was apparently tipped off about the affair long before the news reached the White House, raising questions about why Obama and his staff weren't brought into the loop weeks ago.
Cantor's staff has said they didn't pass along a tip about the affair because they weren't sure it was credible.
Note to readers: FIXES typo in para 7; "left" instead of "let"; MINOR edits
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