In The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes, Secretary of War Henry Stimson is quoted as saying, after the Trinity test and Potsdam declaration but before the bombing of Hiroshima:
I have been responsible for spending two billions of dollars on this atomic venture. Now that it is successful I shall not be sent to prison in Fort Leavenworth.
It is also indicated in the text that project director Leslie Groves would have been in trouble:
The bomb was also to be used to pay for itself, to justify to Congress the investment of $2 billion, to keep Groves and Stimson out of Leavenworth prison.
For what crimes would they have been charged? Or would they simply have been detained until the end of the war? What precedent had Stimson worried about the possibility of being imprisoned for being the leader of a failed project?