Crooked: Interview about a Corrupt 1920’s Attorney General

Retired Intelligence detective Gary Jenkins interviews Nathan Masters about his new book Crooked: The Roaring ’20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal. We learn about a corrupt U.S. Attorney General named Harry Daugherty, the puppet master behind President Warren G. Harding’s unlikely rise to power. Daugherty was well-known to maintain cozy relations with bootleggers and gamblers like Arnold Rothstein and other scofflaws. When his constant companion and trusted fixer, Jess Smith, is found dead of a gunshot wound in the apartment the two men share, a corruption-busting senator from Wyoming and the incorruptible J. Edgar Hoover go to work. This book is packed with political intrigue, salacious scandal, and many similarities to our modern era of political discord. Nathan Masters’ thrilling historical narrative shows how this intricate web of inconceivable crookedness set the stage for the next century of American political scandals. Subscribe to the Podcast for a new gangster story every week. Support the Podcast. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup  click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Donate to the podcast. Click here! Transcript SPEAKERS GARY JENKINS, Nathan Masters 00:00 Yeah, so one of the scenes that really got me going when I started writing this book was something that happened on Memorial Day 1923 at the Wardman Park in fashionable Hotel in Washington where the Attorney General lived, there was a gunshot somebody and there was a man dead from a gunshot wound inside the suite that the Attorney General lived in. And the first law enforcement officer in the scene was none other than the head of what became the FBI, a man named William J. Burns, which if you think about it, it’s a pretty unusual circumstance to have the head of the FBI investigating a local homicide. I’ll read it from my book here a little bit inside the bedroom suite 600 E. Burns found the body of a man named Jeff Smith 50 crumpled at the foot of two beds, in his right hand was a 32 caliber revolver, single bullet had plowed through his head. This was clearly a matter for the local authorities burns knew better than to summon the police immediately, the situation called for discretion for a few in Washington had known as much as the man who now lay before him in a bloody heap, then the book just sort of unfolds from there. 00:56 Thanks a lot. That’s great. Yeah, guys, welcome.