"Scandal" puts a whole new spin on what goes on behind closed doors at the White House. For Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) life is measured in the time it takes to resolve a crisis for someone else. She is considered a professional fixer for people all over the world. Her simple life gets very complicated when an ex-lover calls on her to help him fix a problem that could damage his career. That ex-lover is the President of the United States. Although she knows she shouldn’t, Pope allows the president to pull her back into his world, where she learns he is lying to her about a White House aide that claimed she was pregnant with the president’s baby.

The president, Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn), is married Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) but he is still in love with Pope, who he started an affair with on his campaign to become president. Mellie knows about this affair but goes along with keeping it a secret because she has bigger political aspirations. She only thinks about leaving her husband after he comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t want to be president anymore.

Olivia Pope has her own crisis management agency. She employs Abby Whelan (Darby Stanchfield), Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes), Harrison Wright (Columbus Short) and Huck Finn (Guillermo Diaz). Whelan is an investigator for the agency. Perkins is a lawyer. Wright is a litigator and Finn is a hacker with a few secrets of his own. These team members are hand-picked by Pope because of the loyalty she knows they will have. They follow her into sometimes dangerous territory to help their clients through various crises.

Viewers are able to watch as the Pope and Associates team navigates legal and moral hurdles in crisis management for their clients and the president.