RNC Chairman Michael “The Chickens Have Come To Roost” Steele is dancing as fast as he can to distance himself from the news that the GOP, who cries poor when it comes to healthcare has all kinds of money for perving it up. Pop the hood.
A Republican National Committee staffer who accompanied a group of young donors to a bondage-themed West Hollywood club and then expensed the nearly $2,000 tab has been fired by the committee, POLITICO has learned.
RNC chief of staff Ken McKay announced the firing in an internal committee e-mail obtained by POLITICO.
“This was not an RNC-sanctioned event and was not associated in any way with any RNC official event,” McKay wrote of the February outing to Voyeur, a West Hollywood club modeled after the risqué Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman movie “Eyes Wide Shut.”
The late-night excursion followed an official RNC event in Los Angeles for donors in its “Young Eagles” program, McKay wrote, stressing that neither Chairman Michael Steele nor any senior staff were aware of either the outing or the committee’s reimbursement of the cost.
McKay wrote that the fired staffer, who is not named in the e-mail, “was aware that this activity was not eligible for reimbursement and had been previously counseled on this very subject. Accordingly, that staff person has been terminated.”
McKay also wrote that the donor who was reimbursed for footing the bill at Voyeur, Erik Brown, “has verbally agreed to repay the funds to the RNC.”
A source with knowledge of the situation said Brown, a churchgoing, midlevel political operative, “was not entirely thrilled with the venue that people ended up at” but nonetheless agreed to foot the bill after the RNC staffer in question told him the committee would reimburse the cost.
The RNC’s February Federal Election Commission report shows a $1,946.25 reimbursement to Brown, the owner of an Orange County direct-mail firm that has worked for top GOP candidates and committees, for “meals” at Voyeur.
The RNC, which came under fire earlier this month after POLITICO revealed an inflammatory fundraising presentation, has been doing damage control on the bondage story since The Daily Caller reported the expenditure Monday morning.
It emphasized that Steele did not attend and was unaware of the post-event foray to Voyeur and announced an investigation into how the reimbursement, which the source said violated RNC policy because the expense was not connected to an official event, slipped through accounting procedures.
In a statement Monday night, RNC spokesman Doug Heye said, “The committee has taken appropriate steps to address the issues relating to the reimbursement of certain expenses,” including “personnel actions” and revisions of “accounting and reimbursement processes … to ensure that such an action cannot reoccur.”
Seeking to quell mounting discontent from some donors already unhappy with reports of lavish travel spending by Steele, Heye said, “We recognize the difficulty [the Voyeur] incident has caused and assure our members and supporters that any necessary and proper remediation is being implemented immediately.”
Suckas should’ve just gone to the Red Lobster.
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