<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (April 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (April 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> In April 1922, a Wyoming oil operator wrote to Senator John B. Kendrick, angered that Sinclair had been given a contract to the lands in a secret deal . Kendrick did not respond, but two days later on April 15, he introduced a resolution calling for an investigation of the deal . Republican Senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin led an investigation by the Senate Committee on Public Lands . At first, La Follette believed Fall was innocent . However, his suspicions deepened after his own office in the Senate Office Building was ransacked . </P> <P> Democrat Thomas J. Walsh of Montana, the most junior minority member, led a lengthy inquiry . For two years, Walsh pushed forward while Fall stepped backward, covering his tracks as he went . No evidence of wrongdoing was initially uncovered as the leases were legal enough, but records kept disappearing mysteriously . Fall had made the leases appear legitimate, but his acceptance of the money was his undoing . By 1924, the remaining unanswered question was how Fall had become so rich so quickly and easily . </P>

He sold drilling rights on land in wyoming during the early 1920s