Ulysses S. Grant was president during the Whiskey Ring Scandal. The scandal operated in Milwaukee, Chicago, and St. Louis, and involved distillers, IRS agents, treasury clerks and more who all decided to pocket some of the liquor tax revenues to put them in a campaign coffer to secure the president they wanted. Those lofty goals quickly disintegrated any by 1873 it had become a criminal enterprise that defrauded the federal treasure out of roughly $1.5 per year.
