Charles Lachman: America's Forgotten Presidential Sex Scandal

Charles Lachman is executive producer of Inside Edition and the author of The Last Lincolns: The Rise & Fall of a Great American Family. His new book, A Secret Life: The Sex, Lies and Scandal of President Grover Cleveland, will be published August 1.

Arnold Schwarzenegger. John Edwards. Grover Cleveland?

It's true. In the annals of illegitimate children born to powerful politicians, President Grover Cleveland must rank uppermost. While Schwarzenegger made it with the maid and John Edwards betrayed his wife with a woman who picked him up in a bar, neither can touch the awful acts of Grover Cleveland.

Cleveland's claim to fame is as the only American president to serve two non-consecutive terms in office, and he's remembered as a courageous and pugnaciously honest statesman. But I've spent three years investigating Grover Cleveland for my new book, A Secret Life, tracing the ways in which Cleveland and his keys aides lied about a sex scandal to save his presidential campaign from the career-ending allegations. It's time to correct the record.

Cleveland's sex scandal was well buried, but I found the long-forgotten affidavit from Maria Halpin, about the violent sexual assault that resulted in the birth of Cleveland's illegitimate child....