The Petraeus ‘damsels in distress'

Paula Broadwell was born in 1972. She was valedictorian and homecoming queen of her high school graduating class. She graduated from West Point in 1995. She was a fitness devotee who excelled in triathlons and who described herself No. 1 in fitness in her class at West Point. However, the academy has stated that she didn't win the fitness award and that it went to another female cadet in her class. Broadwell is married and has two young sons.

She initially met Gen. David Petraeus when she was a doctoral student at Harvard in 2006. But in 2007 Broadwell was asked to leave the doctoral program at Harvard. Her course work did not meet its standards. She then chose to rework her unfinished dissertation into what became her best-selling biography of Petraeus, a book ghostwritten by Vernon Loeb of The Washington Post.

Shortly after leaving Harvard in 2008, Broadwell attempted to become an inside player in Washington's foreign policy establishment by suggesting that the new commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, had asked her to assemble a "red team" to conduct an outsider evaluation of Afghan war strategy. But McChrystal had not made such a request, and her proposal was rejected.

In June 2010, President Barack Obama fired McChrystal and replaced him with Petraeus. Shortly thereafter, Broadwell started making trips to Afghanistan. She traveled there about a half-dozen times and would typically stay in theater for two or three weeks each time. There she spent a great deal of time with Petraeus.

In January 2012, the book that she and Loeb wrote was published. Broadwell quickly followed its publication with a nationwide publicity tour.

In September 2011, Petraeus retired, and Obama appointed him to head the CIA. He lasted 14 months. He submitted his resignation last month because of an FBI investigation that documented an extramarital affair with Broadwell.

Petraeus has repeatedly stated that the affair began after he retired from the military. Determining when Broadwell and Petraeus "imbedded" each other is important. If it began while Petraeus was still in uniform, he's subject to prosecution for adultery.

In July, as the FBI investigation into all of this was reaching its climax, Broadwell was consumed by the desire to find just the right 60th birthday gift for her lover. It was to be a surprise birthday bike ride for the two of them with none other than Lance Armstrong. In one way, Broadwell's plan was perfect — Armstrong, like Broadwell and Petraeus, was living a lie. But, of course, there was no birthday ride, no "three dopes a-doping." Instead, Broadwell's new job was to "lawyer up."

In February, Broadwell told Inspired Woman magazine, "Yes, I wear a number of hats, but my most important title is mom and wife." Really?

For reasons that may be irrational or real, Broadwell believed that a socialite in Tampa, Jill Kelley, posed a threat to her affair with Petraeus. Kelley frequently entertained senior officers from CENTCOM, including Petraeus and Marine Gen. John Allen, in her palatial home.

In May 2012, Kelley contacted a local FBI agent she knew and claimed she was being cyberstalked.

The FBI investigation that followed identified that the threatening emails were written by Broadwell and signed, "kelleypatrol." As the FBI combed through all the information it had gathered from Broadwell, it discovered her extramarital affair with Petraeus.

Kelley, like Broadwell, has been living a lie. She wanted everyone, especially the elites and the powerful, to believe her life was devoted to helping the military as a volunteer. But the reality is stunningly different. The Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation that she and her physician husband established to conduct cancer research and help cancer victims has been spending its money on travel, meals and entertainment.

Kelley and her husband have been sued at least nine times, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Regions Bank is attempting to foreclose on their $1.5 million mansion. Last year, a judge ordered foreclosure on an office building the Kelleys own in Tampa and upon which the Kelleys owe $2.2 million. The couple has defaulted on a $250,000 line of credit.

However, Kelley was successful in getting both Petraeus and Allen to intervene in a civilian child custody case involving her twin sister, Natalie Khawam. The judge in the case, Neal Kravitz, was not persuaded by the letters written by the generals. He ruled that Kelley's sister had misrepresented "virtually everything" and awarded custody of the child to her estranged husband. Khawam is now being sued for not paying her divorce lawyer.

ABC News has obtained emails that suggest that Kelley attempted to cover her mounting debt by securing a multibillion-dollar Korean business deal. It fell through. The security threat in something like this is real. Here you have a family in desperate financial straits that is intimately connected to the highest echelon of the nation's military. What better target is there for a hostile foreign intelligence service?

Turns out that Kelley and Broadwell do have something in common — Kelley has lawyered up, too. The Kelleys have hired big-name attorney Abbe Lowell as well as crisis manager Judy Smith, who represented Monica Lewinsky. Hopefully, Lowell and Smith have signed on for the publicity and not because they expect to be paid.

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