GOP spent big at lavish hotels, sex-themed club

Jonathan Strong of The Daily Caller has reported a big story regarding big spending by the GOP and Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele. According to Strong's story, Chairman Steele "once raise the possibility of using party money to buy a private jet for his travel." Steele has also accumulated substantial tabs at some of America's most lavish hotels and a racy Hollywood club:

Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

Here is an account of someone who has attended the Hollywood club:

The girl at the door sent us in right away and told us to go to a table by the bar and get some free Champagne. Seriously. This club is amazing. There are topless "dancers" acting out S&M scenes throughout the night on one of the side stages, there's a half-naked girl hanging from a net across the ceiling and at one point I walked to the bathroom and pretty much just stopped dead in my tracks to watch two girls simulating oral sex in a glass case.

Really understated elegance here.

Also, Lindsay Lohan was at our table at one point.

Family values? Fiscal restraint and responsibility? Well, we know the fiscal responsiblity and restraint aspect went out the window during the previous eight years of the Bush Administration.

Chairman Steele declined to be interviewed for Strong's article, but he did speak with a disgruntled aide:

Complaints, almost always expressed off the record, have been bitter. "This is not somebody who is out recruiting candidates," said an aide who worked closely with Steele. "He is not meeting with donors. He's not asking for money. The guy is writing his book or doing his speaking gigs, or whatever the hell else he fills his days with. Those are his priorities."

But Greg Sargent at The Plum Line has reported that the Republican Party is investigating the expenses, and have claimed the Chairman Steele was not the person who attended the Hollywood club:

We are investigating the expenditure in question. The story willfully and erroneously suggests that the expenditure in question was one belonging to the Chairman. This was a reimbursement made to a non-committee staffer.

The Chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable.

Good reporting would make that distinction crystal clear. The committee has requested that the monies be returned to the committee and that the story be corrected so that it is accurate."

Voyeur West Hollywood nightclub
In February, the RNC reportedly spent nearly $2,000 at Voyeur West Hollywood, a nightclub featuring scantily-clad dancers. UrbanDaddy calls Voyeur "a lavish new nightspot suggesting that highbrow elegance and a bit of S&M are not mutually exclusive."

Flying high
Chartered jets cost the Republican committee more than $17,000 during the month of February alone. The Daily Caller reported that discussions were underway about whether the RNC should buy its own private jet though an RNC spokesman told The Caller that the committee never had "plan" to buy a plane.

Four Seasons, Los Angeles
At the plush Four Seasons in Los Angeles, the RNC's bill came to roughly $6,500, FEC records show.

Wheeling and dealing
The RNC spent more than $12,000 on limousines in February.

Beverly Hills Hotel
Steele spent just over $9,000 at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, according to FEC records.

Aloha!
The RNC held its winter meeting in Hawaii. The trip cost the committee upwards of $43,000.

Vegas
The RNC spent thousands on Las Vegas hotels like the Venetian.