"Harding, like Grant, was unable to detect moral halitosis in his evil associates, and he was soon surrounded by his poker-playing, shirt-sleeved cronies of the “Ohio Gang.” “A good guy,” Harding was “one of the boys.” He hated to hurt people’s feelings, especially those of his friends, by saying no, and designing political leeches capitalized on this weakness. The difference between George Washington and Warren Harding, ran a current quip, was that while Washington could not tell a lie, Harding could not tell a liar. He “was not a bad man,” said one Washington observer. “He was just a slob.”

AMERICAN PAGEANT CHAPTER #32 

The Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872 involved the Union Pacific Railroad and the Crédit Mobilier of America construction company in the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad. The distribution of Crédit Mobilier shares of stock by Congressman Oakes Ames along with cash bribes to congressmen took place during the Andrew Johnson presidency in 1868. The revelation of the congressmen who received cash bribes or shares in Crédit Mobilier took place during the Ulysses S. Grant administration in 1872. The scandal's origins date back to the Abraham Lincoln presidency with the formation of the Crédit Mobilier in 1864.

The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States in 1922–1923, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome and two other locations to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies.

Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics".The scandal also was a key factor in posthumously further destroying the public reputation of the Harding administration, which was already unpopular due to its poor handling of the Great Railroad Strike of 1922 and the President's veto of the Bonus Bill in 1922