Hey, that's right, he got busted when a sweet old grandfatherly/motherly couple who happened to be democrat operatives, were out Christmas shopping and happened to intercept his phone call (illegal) on the scanner that they happened to have, and they happened to record it (illegal) and then they turned it over to the media because, ya know, it was a neat little bit of history that they had stumbled across.
The republican establishment, wanting to be cool with the popular crowd and wanting to show they had some kind of principles, dutifully tossed him and the Grandfatherly/motherly couple had a nice "winter break".