US EditionArctic Frost provision in spending bill to let spied-on senators sue for $500K will ‘probably’ be repealed: Mike Johnson
House plans to repeal Senate provision granting senators exclusive rights to sue over phone data subpoenas, citing fairness and concerns over retroactive legal fees up to $500,000.
- On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives will hold a full vote to repeal the late-added Senate provision after a House bill was filed to overturn it.
- At the request of the Senate GOP conference, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., reportedly inserted the language after some senators and Mike Kelly, R-Pa., had their phone records subpoenaed during Jack Smith's Jan. 6 investigation.
- The provision applies only to senators and permits legal-fee payments for cases tied to undisclosed seizures of phone or electronic data, while the Department of Justice and FBI must notify the Senate when a lawmaker is investigated.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson said members were blindsided and frustrated by the no-notice addition, and if the House repeals it, the measure will return to the Senate.
- Amid worries about retroactivity and optics, lawmakers raised concerns since prosecutors who worked under Special Counsel Jack Smith were fired after the inauguration, and some targeted senators say they will not seek payments.
30 Articles
30 Articles
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Senate Republicans are expected to vote soon on whether to keep a controversial provision that was included in the legislation that reopened the federal government after the recent 43-day shutdown. But that language is causing significant division among the Senate Republican Conference.That's according to a Tuesday article by Politico's Hailey Fuchs and Jordain Carney, who reported that senators are planning to discuss that section in a Wednesda…
Republican leaders lash out at each other over bill that lets GOP senators pay themselves
Ever since the federal government shutdown was averted, controversy has sprung up over a hidden provision in the bill that would let U.S. senators investigated by former special counsel Jack Smith in the 2020 election coup plot to sue the federal government for up to $500,000. Even Republicans in the House scrambled to disavow the provision, and though they stopped short of amending it out, several, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), s…
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