Whiskey Ring
American political scandal
The Whiskey Ring took place from 1871 to 1876 during the Gilded Age, centering in St. Louis during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. This ring, a significant act of corruption during this time period, was an American scandal, broken in May 1875, involving the diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. Whiskey distillers bribed officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury to increase profits and evade taxes. Grant's Justice Department prosecuted members of Grant's own Republican Party who were part of the Ring. The kingpin of the Whiskey Ring was the notorious General John McDonald, whom Grant had appointed Revenue Collector of Missouri District in 1869. Under the leadership of Grant's Secretary of Treasury, Benjamin Bristow, a reformer, the Ring was uncovered and broken up.
Prosecutions of members of the Ring started in 1875 and ended in 1876. McDonald was indicted, put on trial, found guilty, fined $5,000, and sentenced to federal prison for 18 months. Grant's private Secretary Orville Babcock was indicted, put on trial in St.
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This entry incorporates text from “Whiskey Ring” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.