The National Republican Congressional Committee is very put out by 60 Minutes' ability to sneak a hidden camera into their super-secret lawmaker fundraising suites. Oh, there will be consequences.
The "60 Minutes" piece, which aired Sunday, had hidden-camera footage of the NRCC's private headquarters, including shots of rooms from which members make fundraising calls. The piece, anchored by Norah O’Donnell, was about Rep. David Jolly's (R-Fla.) STOP Act, which would prohibit lawmakers from personally soliciting political contributions. The bill has just six cosponsors, and is extremely unlikely to ever get a vote in the House.
The report included footage of a congressperson making those fundraising phone calls, and the NRCC's fury should make clear just how “no press allowed” they consider those phone sessions to be. Members of Congress are prohibited from fundraising on the taxpayer's dime, which for Republicans means that they need to troop on over to the NRCC building to make calls from specially set up "call suites." which are (usually) strictly protected from irritants like reporters asking who they're calling and what things might be said during those conversations. Nope, just talking about the existence of such facilities is a sore point, and filming them is Right The Hell Out.
So somebody is in a lot of trouble. Oh, they don't know who yet, but they're in for it now, they are. They're going to investigate the bejeebers out of this one.
The organization's leadership has narrowed down when the footage was shot this spring, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
Officials are confident they will be able to figure out who brought the hidden camera in.
Oh and as an aside, our elected officials spend bucketloads of their elected time in something called "call suites" set up to allow them to make money-raising calls without anyone knowing what they're doing—telemarketing raised to Holy Sacrament status—but meh. The real outrage here is the time someone managed to bring a camera in.