Here's a scenario to consider.
Right-wing hero James O'Keefe got caught trying to bug Senator Landrieu's office. Senator Landrieu is on the Senate's Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. This is serious shit and bugging the office of a Senator on this committee is serious shit.
O'Keefe is a true believer, but just suppose that he wasn't working for who he thought he was working for. If you were looking to get intelligence info, who would be more obvious to turn to than the true believers of the conservative movement? They start out hating the government. These clucks will believe literally anything if it's worded correctly. So all you have to do is tell them they're engaged in an action that will "expose liberals" or something, and they'll do anything to help you.
I started thinking about this back when Reagan was running against Carter, and the story came out that the Reagan campaign was running an intelligence operation stealing secret documents right out of the White House. They got a military aide to steal Carter's briefing book, and columnist George Will to help them, without reporting it. So I started thinking, what if the Soviet Union was aware of this? And of course they were. What better way for them to penetrate the US Government? Surely the Reagan campaign's security had a lower bar than the US Government. The Republicans might have been using the documents to win elections, but who else was looking at them?
So let's not just dismiss this as some prank. They attempted to bug the office of a member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which handles secret information. Maybe O'keefe was just going to listen for stuff to put on Fox News, but who else was able to listen to his bugs?