FBI announced that they will be preparing a timeline for Petraeus’ probe in order to explain why they waited for so long before notifying the White House of their discovery. The criminal investigation has helped officials discover the CIA Director David Petraeus’ extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.

The extramarital relationship between the ex-CIA director David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell continues to make headlines. FBI announced on early Tuesday that they are now preparing a timeline of Petraeus’ investigation to prove that they were in no position to notify the White House when the affair was first discovered.

Paula Broadwell’s house was also searched on Monday as investigators were trying to determine whether the woman was aware of national security matters or not. The Pentagon is paying close attention to the case, as well; they announced that they will analyze communications between the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and the second woman involved in the case to determine whether they contained any secret messages.

The two lovers recurred to a secret method used only by terrorists and agents to hide their email traffic. They would write the messages, but instead of transmitting them to the other interlocutor’s inbox, they would save them in the draft folder or in an electronic “dropbox”. The other person would later on, log into the account and read the message without creating email trails that could be intercepted.

Although FBI found out about Petraeus’ relationships months ago, the White House was only informed on November 6th, during Elections Day. The former CIA director acknowledged his mistake and filed his resignation papers on the same day the news was made public. A senior federal law enforcement official tried to blame the notification timing on longstanding policies and practices. He stated that FBI cannot disclose information about their criminal investigations because they observe a federal law that was adopted during Nixon’s administration.