Oil Fields, Bags of Cash, a Presidency Exposed

Summary

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HISTORY This Week – “Oil Fields, Bags of Cash, a Presidency Exposed”

Release Date: April 6, 2026
Podcast: HISTORY This Week, The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
Main Theme:
This episode delivers a dramatic retelling of the infamous Teapot Dome scandal—the biggest corruption scandal in American political history before Watergate. Through rich storytelling and expert interviews, it explores the motivations of the key players, the unraveling of their secret dealings, and how the fallout permanently changed government oversight and Senate investigative powers.

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Episode Overview

The episode dives into the 1922 Teapot Dome scandal—a secret deal to lease oil reserves on public land, involving Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall, oil tycoons Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny, and President Warren G. Harding’s administration. The show details how greed for oil profits corrupted the country’s leadership, exposed a network of cronyism known as the “Ohio Gang,” and led to landmark legal decisions that still shape American constitutional law.

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Key Segment Breakdown

1. The Setting: Oil, Politics, and Power (01:09–10:18)

• Backdrop: Central Wyoming, 1920; Teapot Dome's 135-million-barrel oil field was set aside by President Wilson for the Navy.
• Albert Fall: Frontier man, poker enthusiast, and opportunist, becomes Secretary of the Interior.
• Harding Administration: Heavy with drinking, gambling, and cronyism—the “Ohio Gang.”
• Fall's Ideology:

  “Why lock [America’s riches] away when you can create wealth?” – Host John Earl (01:18)

• Key Character: Joshua Kastenberg (University of New Mexico School of Law) frames Fall’s worldview:

  “They don’t always work according to the law of contracts...they work in many instances according to the law of power.” (06:27)

Notable Quote

“Harding is riding the crest of a wave of popularity.... If there was some irregularity in government contracting, it wasn't likely to upset the American public all that much.”
— Joshua Kastenberg, on initial public apathy (10:20)

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2. The Secret Deal – Contract, Exposure, and Initial Reaction (10:23–13:35)

• Fall’s Maneuvering: Transfers naval oil reserves from Navy to Interior without competition; grants Harry Sinclair exclusive drilling rights.
• Fall’s Secrecy:

  “He signs the deal, locks it in his drawer and leaves town.” – Host John Earl (08:48)

• Media Leak: Wall Street Journal’s front-page exposé.
• Public Reaction: Initially underwhelmed; Harding’s popularity and booming postwar economy overshadow concern.
• Harding’s Downfall: Parties, corruption, and his questioning of whether to publicly expose scandal before his premature death in 1923.

Memorable Moment

“The secret party house is run by the Attorney General. Warren Harding is often ranked among our worst presidents... because of the crooked company he kept, starting with his inner circle, a group known as the Ohio Gang.”
— John Earl (11:55)

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3. The Investigation Breaks Open (15:01–22:51)

• Senate Hearings Begin: One year post-exposé; Albert Fall stonewalls under questioning.
• Carl McGee’s Testimony: New Mexico journalist, once threatened by Fall ("I’m going to break you"), points out the transformation of Fall’s ranch post-contract.
• The $100,000 Question: Explosion in Fall's visible wealth leads to investigation.
• The Alibi Unravels: McGee’s story, and the investigation into whether Washington Post owner Edward McLean actually funded Fall, reveals lies and further intrigue.
• Fall on the Run: Skips testimony, journalists and agents track him as front-page news engulfs America.

Notable Quotes

“Where did Albert Fall get his money? This becomes the central question of Teapot Dome. It’s a lot like, ‘What did the president know and when did he know it?’”
— John Earl (19:03)
“McLean said, ‘Well, I wrote him checks for $100,000, but he never actually cashed the checks. He brought them back to me and so he didn’t get the money from me.’”
— Jack McElroy, summarizing McLean’s testimony (21:36)

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4. Expanding the Scandal: California Oil Leases & Bags of Cash (22:51–25:11)

• Not Just Wyoming: Fall leased two even larger oil fields in California to Edward Doheny.

• Doheny Testifies: Admits sending his son with $100,000 in cash to Fall—claims it was a loan unrelated to the oil deals.

  “I did it. I gave him the $100,000. But... it has nothing to do whatsoever with these oil lease contracts. Just a loan between old friends.”
  — Paraphrased from Doheny’s testimony (24:17)

• Hard Facts: Doheny expected $100 million profit; optics of no-bid contracts and literal bags of cash.

• Public Outrage Erupts:

  “If there are corrupt businessmen, that's one thing. If there are corrupt people in the Oval Office, that's another. And that is, to me, the tipping point.”
  — Joshua Kastenberg (25:11)

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5. Legal Fallout, Lasting Legacy & Final Fates (25:11–28:38)

• Additional Payments: Fall received more bribes from Sinclair—cash, bonds, even livestock.

• Charges Brought: Fall, Sinclair, and Doheny indicted for bribery and conspiracy (mid-1924).

• Landmark Supreme Court Ruling:

  • McGrain v. Daugherty (26:46–27:09): Affirms Senate’s power to issue subpoenas in investigations—a precedent used for Watergate, Whitewater, and further government oversight.

    “Without Teapot Dome, Congress wouldn’t have the subpoena power it still uses today."
    — John Earl (27:26)

• Fate of the Players:

  • Albert Fall: Convicted, first former U.S. Cabinet official sent to prison, dies in poverty and disgrace (28:38).
  • Edward Doheny: Acquitted, despite clear bribe payments.

    “It was unjust that the wealthy briber had not been held to justice, but the poor bribed was, and it did not strike him as fair.”
    — Jack McElroy, quoting Carl McGee (28:22)

• Aftermath: Teapot Dome oil field returned to the U.S. Navy, lay untapped until the 1970s, then sold (scandal-free) in 2015.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Harding’s Inner Circle:

  "These parties aren't just about getting drunk or listening to jazz music. These parties are about sex... and Roman orgies and the like."
  – Joshua Kastenberg (11:12)

• On the paradox of legal justice:

  "The wealthy briber had not been held to justice, but the poor bribed was."
  – Carl McGee (28:22)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:09 – Introduction to Albert Fall and Teapot Dome
• 06:15 – Interview: Joshua Kastenberg on Fall’s mindset
• 08:48 – Fall signs secret oil contract
• 11:12–12:21 – Corruption, parties, and the Ohio Gang
• 13:19–13:35 – Harding’s death & Teapot Dome about to blow
• 15:01–19:03 – Senate hearings; Carl McGee’s testimony
• 24:17 – Doheny’s confession about the $100,000 bag
• 26:46–27:09 – Supreme Court decision on Congressional subpoena power
• 28:22-28:38 – Carl McGee’s reflection on justice and Fall’s death

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Takeaways

• The Teapot Dome scandal set the template for high-level American corruption—secret deals, bribes, denials, and a long investigation.
• Public and political response evolved from indifference to intense outrage as the scale and brazenness of the crimes became clear.
• The episode details how the fallout led to pivotal Supreme Court rulings, strengthening Congress’s oversight powers on fraud and executive corruption.
• The human stories—Fall’s hubris and ruin, Doheny’s escape from justice, McGee’s crusading journalism—underline the moral complexity and significance of the scandal.
• The show ultimately frames Teapot Dome as a cautionary tale, a crucible in which modern mechanisms for government accountability were forged.

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Credits and Sources

• Guests:
  • Joshua Kastenberg, Univ. of New Mexico School of Law
  • Jack McElroy, author and journalist
• Referenced Works:
  • The Teapot Dome Scandal by Leighton McCartney
  • Tempest Over Teapot Dome by David Stratton
  • Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana by J. Leonard Bates

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This summary was prepared to give you a vivid, full-spectrum account of a complex historical turning point—and the lasting mark it left on the American presidency and system of government accountability.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

History this week, April 7, 1922 I'm John Earl. With the stroke of a pen, Albert Fall really thinks he's pulled it off. Fall has worked the land all his life. Mining it, farming it, harvesting it. He has a frontiers in his belief that America's riches are there to be exploited. Why lock them away when you can create wealth? Today, by Fall's own account, the contract is a win win. The government gets royalties and new oil storage facilities. Industry gets to drill one of the richest oil fields left untapped. Only Easterners suffering from what some called conservation hysteria could possibly object. Dade howled when Albert Fall became Secretary of the Interior. Just think how they'll howl when they hear about this secret contract to drill unprotected land. That's why it has to stay hush hush a little while longer. Fall's office in Washington, D.C. is as majestic as the frontier itself. Redwood paneling, Native American faces etched in glass, and a pair of stuffed Alaskan eagles so lifelike that they seem about to take off. Today, there are few witnesses as Fall signs the contract. Once all the signatures are gathered, he locks the document away in his desk and orders his assistant to tell nobody. He really thinks thinks he's pulled it off. But big money, really big money, is hard to hide. And with his signature, Fall has set in motion a scandal that for half a century will be the textbook example of corruption. Before Watergate, there was Teapot Dome. Today, how did a shady oil contract become a scandal that forever tarnished an administration and defined an era of American politics and how did the Teapot Dome scandal shape how the government has policed itself ever since? Central Wyoming is a land of sagebrush prairies and big skies. About 50 miles north of Casper, there's this rocky outcropping that once looked, well, a lot like a teapot. So much so that passing cowboys named it Teapot Rock. Driving through here in 1920, you would have seen Teapot Rock and not much else. But you would have guessed at the riches hidden underground. This is oil country, after all. Those oil pumps that bob up and down, they're known as nodding donkeys. And there are thick herds of them just around the bend. America's addiction to oil is just beginning. Demand is skyrocketing. There are Model Ts and airplanes to fuel. Oil companies are racing to produce more and more of it. And with oil prices at all time highs, they can make huge profits doing it. Teapot Dome is the kind of place they would love to drill, but they're not allowed to because President Woodrow Wilson had set aside the oil underneath an estimated 135 million barrels for the US Navy in case of a national emergency. So Teapot Dome is strictly off limits. Or is it? It's late, almost midnight in Washington, D.C. some senators are sitting around a table working. Just kidding. They're playing poker just like they do several times a week. The man with the black Stetson hat. That's tonight's host, New Mexico Senator Albert Fall. Fall is half Washington, half Wild West. Besides the hat, he's got a rugged cigar in his mouth and rumor goes, a six shooter at his hip. Bacon. And he's not cosplaying. He really has hung out with sheriffs and gunslingers and he's a riveting storyteller. Like many frontiersmen, Fall has spent his life making money off the land.

[C]

Fall always wanted to expand the riches of the land. Whether it was cattle ranching and grazing on the land or mining allowing oil drilling. He felt like the riches of the earth were there for people to take and he was going to find ways to earn riches from them.

[B]

Jack McElroy was a newspaper editor in Albert Fall's home state of New Mexico. And he says Fall's determination to extract value from the land, that makes him a natural ally to the oil men eyeing Teapot Tone. The fact that Fall is a former attorney who knows how to bend the law, that makes him a powerful ally for Big Oil.

[D]

He understands in the west, particularly in the Territories, how things work.

[B]

Joshua Kastenberg is a professor at the University of New Mexico School of law.

[D]

And they don't always work according to the law of contracts or the law of property. They work in many instances according to the law, according to the law of power.

[B]

Albert Fall also loves poker. The higher the stakes, the better. When he goes to Washington as part of New Mexico's first senate delegation, Fall and his senate buddies get together. They play poker, they sip whiskey, they talk. And it's at these poker parties that Fall becomes tight with another guy at the table tonight, Ohio senator Warren Harding. Now, Harding isn't dumb, but he's probably not the smartest or the most hard working. Instead, he is a natural resource that's much more valuable in politics. He's really likable.

[D]

Harding is kind of a nice guy, an absolutely nice guy, A partier too. He was a guy you wanted to have a beer with.

[B]

Fall sees something in this handsome, fun loving senator, then in his early 50s. At one poker hang, he predicts against all odds that Harding will be the Republican candidate for president in 1920. Now, maybe fall just wants people later on to think he's a political genius. Or maybe he really does see which way the winds are blowing, Because Harding does in fact win the nomination despite sort of half trying in the general election. He campaigns on a platform of return to normalcy, and he wins by a huge margin, the biggest popular vote margin in history up to that time.

[D]

What he represents is a return to the good days before the war. And he represents life and kind of the face of a presidency that knows how to, you know, have a good time.

[B]

Boy, does he ever. But we'll get back to that. When it comes time to pick his cabinet, Harding does what many presidents do. He appoints his pals, people who share his belief that government should encourage big business rather than check its excesses. Which is how Albert Bacon fall, Mr. Drill Baby Drill himself, becomes Harding's secretary of the interior, the official in charge of managing America's natural resources. Conservationists are outraged by the appointment. Oilmen are pumped. Fall wastes no time. First, he quietly maneuvers to get Teapot Dome, that huge Wyoming oil field, reassigned from the navy department to his department. Harding signs off on the transfer, though he's not really a details guy, so it's unclear whether he actually realizes what he's doing. Then, in secret, Fall offers oil magnate Harry Sinclair what looks like the prize of a lifetime, Exclusive rights to develop Teapot Dome. The numbers are eye popping. Teapot dome contains that 135 million barrels of oil, which, if you do the math, works out to over $100 million in profit. For Sinclair today, that would be almost $2 billion. No one else has the opportunity to even bid. Fall keeps the negotiations secret, even from the rest of the cabinet. And in April 1922, he signs the deal, locks it in his drawer and leaves town. Imagine his reaction when just one week later, the Wall Street Journal runs a front page story. Sinclair consolidated in big oil deal with US Fall shady business, Transferring Teapot Dome to his department and giving Sinclair that no bid contract. It all becomes public when the American people find out. They are outraged, or so you'd think.

[D]

It was a nothing burger.

[B]

America doesn't really care.

[D]

Harding is riding the crest of a wave of popularity. Initially, the economy was booming at home, and if there was some irregularity in government contracting, it wasn't likely to upset the American public all that much.

[B]

What the American people don't know is that behind the scenes, the Harding administration is just wild. This kind of shady business, it's just another day at the White House. And it starts with the man at the top. For one, Warren Gamaliel. Harding loved to party. After dinner, he'd slip out of the White House and head to a nearby house he called the Love Nest. By the time the sitting President of the United States arrived, the booze would be flowing and the party would be bumping.

[D]

These parties just aren't about getting drunk or listening to jazz music. These parties are about sex. They have naked women, high class prostitutes coming out of cakes and dancing on tables and Roman orgies and the like.

[B]

At some of these parts, remember this is during Prohibition. Harding is out there making speeches to the public about the importance of abstaining from alcohol. And yet here at the Love Nest, those rules do not apply.

[D]

And the characters who are at these parties, it's the worst combination you can have. Professional athletes, Hollywood types, the criminal element, and the White House.

[B]

As if that weren't enough, the secret party house is run by the Attorney General. Warren Harding is often ranked among our worst presidents. Not because he liked to party or fathered a love child with his mistress, which he did. It's because of the crooked company he kept starting with his inner circle, a group known as the Ohio Gang. Here's a taste.

[D]

Perry Doherty. He's already corrupt with the bootlegger. Sort of the Prohibition era. Smith is taking kickbacks from bankers and bootleggers too. Charles Forbes is corrupt. And then you have this scandal with the alien property custodian.

[B]

Eventually, the stench of corruption starts to overwhelm even Harding. He becomes nervous and distracted on a listening tour in mid-1923, he turns to Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and asks, if you knew of a great scandal in our administration, would you, for the good of the country and the party, expose it publicly? Or would you bury it? It's a choice he'll never have to make, because on August 2, at a hotel in San Francisco, he dies. The official cause is a stroke, but a friend offers a different diagnosis. Part terror, part shame, and part utter confusion.

[D]

Harding sort of dies fortuitously in the sense that he doesn't have to fight these things anymore.

[B]

That includes the biggest gusher of a scandal. Teapot Dome is about to blow.

[E]

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[B]

It's 10am on the day after Thanksgiving, 1923. In a small room in the Senate office building, a group of lawmakers and witnesses gather on opposite sides of a polished wooden table. A glittering chandelier hangs overhead. It's been over a year since the Wall Street Journal broke the Teapot Dome story. The Senate has finally begun hearings. Harry Sinclair, the oil magnate, has testified so has Albert Fall. But Fall has played his hand like a pro. He plays dumb. He spews irrelevant details. He's dismissive, he's sarcastic. And he leaves the investigation absolutely nowhere. But the lead investigator has an ace up his sleeve. He calls a witness named Carl McGee.

[C]

Carl McGee was tall. He was pugnacious. His eyes were described in newspaper articles as gray. He had this steel gray demeanor that came to sort of define his appearance.

[B]

What's he like to get a beer with? McGee doesn't drink. He's a newspaper man in Fall's home state of New Mexico, and the two of them have a bit of a history. A couple years back, McGee bought the biggest paper in the state from a group of investors that included Fall, a decision Fall would quickly regret.

[C]

Fall was comfortable that McGee was going to be just another good old Republican and go along to get along. And McGee began running the Journal the way he wanted to. He exposed corruption, especially in the state land office. And before long, Fall was in his office in Albuquerque, threatening to drive him out of business if he didn't back off.

[B]

I'm going to break you is what Fall actually says to McGee. And it's not an idle threat. Fall is scary. He's stormy, he's vindictive. There are rumors that he even had an early political rival killed. One D.C. socialite calls him as poisonous as a cobra. But McGee, the newspaper man, isn't one to be pushed around.

[C]

McGee was a guy who could pretty easily get his back up. And in fact, I think he really relished the fight. I think Carl McGee had a little bit of a messiah complex. And the more that someone pushed on him, the more it reinforced his self image as this champion who was fighting against evil.

[B]

At the Senate hearing, McGee tells the story of buying that newspaper.

[C]

And he was then asked about his meeting that he had had with Fall at his ranch in Three Rivers.

[B]

Falls Ranch is so big, it's almost the size of Rhode Island. When Magee first visits to negotiate the newspaper sale in 1920, the place is looking more than a little run down.

[C]

Magee described the dilapidated condition of Falls Ranch. He said that Fall picked him up at the station in a car that was so battered that it broke down more than once. Driving a few miles from the station

[B]

to Falls Ranch, Ball is clearly not a rich man. Back in 1920, which makes sense. His Senate salary is only $7,500 a year, about 120,000 today. But a couple years later, McKee visits the ranch again, and things look quite a bit different.

[C]

He Went by it after the naval oil lease contracts had been let, and he couldn't even recognize where he was because the road was so improved, the fencing was beautiful. And this was a story that he relayed in his testimony to the committee, raising the question that blew the lid off of the scandal. Where did Albert Fall get his money?

[B]

Where did Albert Fall get his money? This becomes the central question of Thibaut Dome. It's a lot like, what did the president know and when did he know it, which will later drive the war. Watergate investigation. McGee's testimony helps turn Teapot Dome from an obscure investigation into government leasing into a major corruption scandal, the kind of scandal that ruins lives and changes how a country does business. Fall is on the ropes. Soon he'll be on the run. The Senate committee learns that Fall didn't just renovate his ranch. He also paid off almost a decade of back taxes, and he somehow came up with another $100,000 to buy the neighboring ranch. The investigation zeroes in on that money. Where did Fall get it? What a rude question. Wych hunt. Fall says he moves to defend his honor.

[C]

I'm going to respond to this lying Carl McGee.

[B]

He even boards a train to Washington to testify. But he never arrives, changes his mind, and sends a letter instead.

[C]

He said that he had gotten the money to buy this adjoining ranch from Edward McLean, who was the owner of the Washington Post and was actually a friend of Albert Fall.

[B]

McLean is a notorious D.C. playboy. He's the landlord of Harding's love nest. And for Fall, he provides the perfect cover story. So much so that when Fall names McClane as the money man, many politicos think the case is closed. A tempest in a teapot, one writes. Even Senator Thomas Walsh, the lead investigator, seems about to give up. But D.C. is a small town, and word on the street is that McLean, the seedy friend, isn't quite as rich as he seems to. He might not have $100,000 to loan Albert Fall. Walsh decides to find out. He invites McClain to testify under oath. Did you loan fall the money? McClain says, essentially, yeah. You know, I'd love to talk, but I have this sinus infection, and also I'm kind of in Florida for the winter, so. Sorry.

[C]

Walsh really did not appreciate that response.

[B]

So Walsh does something unusual, like a senatorial superhero. He transforms himself into a subcommittee of one, and he goes to Palm beach to confront MacLaine face to face. Did you loan Fall the money?

[C]

And McLean said, well, I wrote him checks for $100,000, but he never actually cashed the checks. He brought them back to me and so he didn't get the money from me.

[B]

The story is a total lie. Even Albert Fall has to admit it. He just so happens to be in Palm beach staying under an alias, and he agrees to talk. But at the last minute he backs out again and skips town. By now the story is front page. News journalists are tracking Fall's every move. Federal agents are making sure he doesn't flee the country. The public is demanding an answer to the $100,000 question. And soon they'll get it.

[E]

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[B]

there's something else I have to tell you at this point in the story. Albert Fall didn't just secretly lease out one naval oil reserve. He leased out three. Besides Teapot Dome, there are two oil fields in California. And they're even bigger than Teapot Dome.

[D]

Those two oil fields in California are immense. If you ever drive on Interstate 5 or 99 going north of Bakersfield, you see the oil derricks out on those two areas. They are still productive oil fields.

[B]

And Fall leased these new other oil fields to another oil magnate named Edward Doheny. Doheny is a slight older man with gentlemen blue eyes, but his looks are deceiving. Doheny is a cutthroat businessman.

[D]

Daniel Day Lewis character in the movie There Will Be Blood was modeled after Doheny. He is a very powerful man.

[B]

If you are not careful, this guy will drink your milkshake. On January 24, 1924, Doheny appears in front of the Senate committee. These hearings are now the hottest ticket in Washington. They move into a bigger room to fit all the journalists and spectators. Even the air reportedly now smells of costly perfumes. At 3pm Doheny reads a statement that I'll summarize in three it was me.

[D]

I did it. I gave him the $100,000. But then he says look, it has not. He does the wink and not. It has nothing to do whatsoever with these oil lease contracts, trucks, just a

[B]

loan between old friends. But the optics are obviously really bad. Under questioning, Doheny says that he had his son stuff $100,000 in cash into A little black bag and personally deliver it to Fall. Doheny also admits that he expected to make $100 million from the two California oil fields. This at a time when the average American salary is just over $1,000. Shady no bid contracts, black bags of cash. The scandal is now, as one reporter puts it, a throbbing drama of politics, high finance and intrigue. And the public is finally paying attention.

[D]

If there are corrupt businessmen, that's one thing. If there are corrupt people in the Oval Office, that's another. And that is, to me, the tipping point. The scandals with the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Interior, the United States Navy, the lining of pockets, the enriching of someone's lives who was supposed to be a public servant. That's devastating to the trust in government.

[B]

As if things could not get any worse for Albert Fall, investigators also learned that he's received additional payments from the Teapot Dome oilman Harry Sinclair. These include hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonds and cash, plus a menagerie that reads like the 12 days of six Holstein heifers, four sows, two boars and an old racehorse named Sunflash 2. When fall finally returns to the witness stand, he's clearly a broken man. Gone is the blustery frontiersman. He is actually very sick. His clothes are wrinkled and baggy. He leans on a cane, avoiding eye contact. And in a prepared statement, he pleads his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. By mid-1924, Fall, Sinclair and Doheny are charged with bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. There's a lot of legal wrangling from here. The cases go on for years and years. But here's the upshot.

[D]

There are three U.S. supreme Court cases that come out of this.

[B]

The most important is a case called McGrain vs Doherty. A unanimous decision that the Senate does

[D]

have the authority, as does the House, to issue enforceable subpoenas if they are investigating something to further a government interest or protect a government authority.

[B]

This decision has had huge implications right down to the present.

[D]

That's the decision that enabled Senator Sam Ervin to lead the joint investigation into Watergate that enabled the investigation into the Whitewater conspiracy and fraud during the Clinton administration and enables the Senate and the House to investigate the sitting president.

[B]

Without Teapot Dome, Congress wouldn't have the subpoena power it still uses today. As for Albert Fall, he never admits wrongdoing, always maintains that the case was politically motivated. But it doesn't save him from total ruin. Convicted of accepting that $100,000 bribe, he becomes the first former Cabinet member to go to prison. On July 20, 1931, a black ambulance carries him through the gates of New Mexico State Penitentiary. Old and ill, he's taken right to the prison hospital where he spends the next 10 months. But here's the crazy part. Oilman Edward Doheny, one of the richest men in America, is acquitted of giving the very same bribe. There's a lot of outrage about this at the time, including from our old friend newsman Carl McGee.

[C]

He wrote a column that he thought it was unjust that the wealthy briber had not been held to to justice. But the poor bribed was, and it did not strike him as fair.

[B]

The case destroys Fall's career. After prison, he dies in poverty and disgrace in 1944. High winds knocked the spout off Teapot Rock decades ago, but the oil field still exists. After the Teapot Dome contract was voided by the Supreme Court, the oil field was returned to the Navy. It lay virtually untapped until the oil crisis of the 1970s, and in 2015, the government finally sold it. Scandal free to an oil. Thanks for listening to History this Week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things History this week, sign [e-mail] and if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an [e-mail] Special thanks to our guests, Joshua Kastenberg, professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law. Professor Kastenberg is writing a book about the Supreme Court cases related to Teapot dome and Jack McElroy, author of Citizen Carl the Editor who Cracked Teapot Dome, Shot a Judge, and Invented the Parking Meter. Thanks also to Brandon Roddinghouse, professor of Political Science at the University of Houston and author of Scandal why Politicians Survive Controversy in a Partisan Era. We also used the books the Teapot Dome scandal by Leighton McCartney, Tempest over Teapot Dome by David Stratton and Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana by J. Leonard Bates, among other sources. This episode was produced by Mae Jonnerell and sound designed by Dan Rosado for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producer is Ben Dickstein from the History Channel. Our executive produce producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow rate and Review History this week wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next week.