Reply #52: From Wikipedia-- [View All]

[Jackpine Radical]

For those who aren't familiar with the scandal:

In 1921, by executive order of President Harding, control of U.S. Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and at Elk Hills and Buena Vista in California, was transferred from the U.S. Navy Department to the Department of the Interior. The petroleum reserves had been set aside for the Navy by President Taft. In 1922, Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased, without competitive bidding, the Teapot Dome fields to Harry F. Sinclair of Sinclair Oil, and the field at Elk Hills, California, to Edward L. Doheny. In 1922 and 1923, these transactions became the subject of a sensational U.S. Senate investigation conducted by Senator Thomas J. Walsh (Democrat -- Montana).

It was found that in 1921, Doheny had lent Fall $100,000, interest-free, and that upon Fall's retirement as Secretary of the Interior, in March 1923, Sinclair also lent him a large amount of money. The investigation led to criminal prosecutions.<4> Fall was indicted for conspiracy and for accepting bribes. Convicted of the latter charge, he was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $100,000, the same amount that Doheny had lent him. In another trial for bribery Doheny and Sinclair were acquitted, although Sinclair was subsequently sentenced to prison for contempt of the Senate and for employing detectives to shadow members of the jury in his case. The oil fields were restored to the U.S. government through a Supreme Court decision in 1927.