On March 7, 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt launched an investigation into frauds in the Post Office. Early in April, Postmaster-General Henry C. Payne informed Tyner who was under suspicion of corruption to resign office by a mutual friend . Tyner and Mrs. Tyner then pleaded with Payne to keep Tyner in office. Payne then postponed Tyner's resignation to May 1 and told Tyner he was suspended from duties as Assistant Attorney barring Tyner from his office. This left Tyner in a precarious position of technically being Assistant Attorney without administrative powers. Tyner instructed his wife to retrieve his official papers from the safe room in his Washington D.C. office on the fifth floor of the Postal Department. On Tuesday April 20 Mrs. Tyner arrived at Tyner's office at closing time 4 P.M. and was allowed to enter Tyner's office unsuspectedly alone. Tyner's wife then secretly let in her sister-in-law and a company safe man by another door who unlocked the safe, whereupon, Mrs. Tyner retrieved all of Tyner's official papers. Having bundled and packaged the papers Mrs. Tyner sent the papers by an African American messenger, who had also entered Tyner's office by another door, taking the papers to Tyner's residence. After her party had left by the other door, Mrs. Tyner then walked out of Tyner's office alone, and returned to Tyner's house. The head of the Post Office Bureau George Christiancy immediately discovered and informed Postmaster-General Payne of Mrs. Tyner taking Tyners papers from the safe. Payne sent two investigators to Tyner's house, but Tyner and his wife refused to give the investigators Tyner's papers nor allow the investigators into Tyner's residence.