Teapot Dome scandal: United States Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases federal petroleum reserves to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.
Teapot Dome scandal
The Teapot Dome scandal was a political corruption scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Warren G. Harding. It centered on Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall, who had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, as well as two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. The leases were the subject of an investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison, but no one was convicted of paying the bribes.
Albert B. Fall
Albert Bacon Fall was a United States senator from New Mexico and Secretary of the Interior under President Warren G. Harding who became infamous for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal; he was the only person convicted as a result of the affair. As a captain in the United States Army, he supported a military invasion of Mexico in 1916 as a means of ending Pancho Villa's raids.