In 1924, following Harding's death, Congress held hearings on the Justice Department's role in failing to oversee their Prohibition duties under the Volstead Act. Means testified against former Attorney General Daugherty. Means "confessed" to handling bribes for senior officials in the former Harding Administration. He declared the country was being bespoiled and that he had the documents to prove it. When asked to produce them, Means readily agreed but returned with a story that "two sergeants-at-arms" had appeared at his home, produced an order signed by the head of the committee and had taken the documents away with them. The committee head examined the "order" and declared his signature a forgery. Means leaped from his chair. "Forgery!" he said. "I've been tricked by my enemies. I'll run them down if it's the last thing I do!" After testifying before the Brookhart-Wheeler committee, Gaston Means signed an affidavit stating that his entire testimony was false and that he had only given it because senator Burton Wheeler had promised to get the then current charges against him dismissed. Means further admitted in his affidavit that he had coached the other witness in the case, Roxie Stinson.