House lawmakers are expected to vote this week on repealing a controversial carve-out tucked into the shutdown-ending funding bill, which has drawn sharp backlash from House Republicans, according to FOX News.
The provision — inserted into the Legislative Branch appropriations bill and labeled “Requiring Senate Notification for Senate Data” — would allow senators targeted in former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation to sue the federal government for up to $500,000, FOX reported. According to subpoenas released in October, Smith had used his Arctic Frost probe to review communications from hundreds of Republican figures and organizations.
Eight Republican senators were targeted in the subpoenas: Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, as well as Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.
Graham, one of the senators reportedly involved in pushing the language, signaled he intends to use the provision.
When reporters in South Carolina asked whether he planned to sue, Graham said, “Oh, definitely. And if you think I’m going to settle this thing for a million dollars? No. I want to make it so painful no one ever does this again.”
Cruz, another lawmaker who pushed the measure, said it was included “to provide real teeth to the prohibition on the Department of Justice targeting senators,” according to a Politico report cited by FOX.
CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky said the Senate’s provision misses the larger scandal and fails to protect the full scope of those swept up in the probe.
“The purpose, poorly done, was that the provision allows Senators to sue, allowing for discovery of documents that are not forthcoming from the FBI,” McClusky said. “The poorly done part is they left out the House members, and more importantly, the thousands of American private citizens, who were also targeted, and some led to bankruptcy.”
According to FOX, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., added the language with approval from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and at the request of Graham, Cruz, and other unnamed senators.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital the measure was added without House lawmakers’ knowledge and said members feared the surprise provision could have jeopardized the final vote to end the shutdown.
“It had been done without our knowledge. I mean, it had been added in the Senate without our knowledge,” Cole said. “It was a real trust factor … I mean, all of a sudden, this pops up in the bill, and we’re confronted with either leave this in here, or we pull it out, we have to go to conference, and the government doesn’t get reopened.”
During a Nov. 11 meeting ahead of the House shutdown vote, Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Austin Scott, R-Ga., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., all voiced concerns about the measure, saying taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to underwrite senators’ potential lawsuits, FOX reported. Still, they agreed the issue wasn’t worth prolonging the shutdown.
Roy told Fox News Digital he personally confronted Senate Republicans about the measure.
“Well, they heard them,” Roy said when asked how lawmakers responded to his concerns. “I mean, you know, the lords don’t like to be told by mere commoners what to do. But we’re going to have to take a pretty strong stand on this one.”
Reg. Greg Steube, R-Fla., who voted against the final bill, told reporters that he would not vote “to send Lindsey Graham half a million dollars.”
According to FOX, Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., introduced legislation to repeal the provision and said the only appropriate response from the senators “is that they should all disavow that immediately.”
“The American people should not be asked to make compensation to United States senators, the ultimate insiders, if you will — who have been wronged,” he told Fox News Digital.
Rose added that the “provision does not allow other Americans to pursue a remedy. It does not even allow the President of the United States, who was equally wrongfully surveilled and pursued by the Justice Department — they didn’t even include President Trump in this. They saved this special treat for themselves.”
When asked by reporters about the measure, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he “had no idea” about it and that the House will fast-track a vote to repeal it.
“I was just as surprised by the inclusion of that language as anyone. I had no prior notice of it at all,” Johnson said. “I was frustrated, as my colleagues are over here, and I thought it was untimely and inappropriate. So we’ll be requesting, strongly urging, our Senate colleagues to repeal that.”
But several senators whose records were subpoenaed said they didn’t know the provision existed.
Sullivan learned about it only after reading the final bill and “has no plans to sue,” according to a senior advisor for the lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital.
Johnson, the Wisconsin senator who was also subpoenaed, told Fox News Digital he supports the provision as “a deterrent” to prevent future abuses but has no plans to sue.
Blackburn, who intends to pursue a declaratory judgment over her records, said she supports repealing the lawsuit mechanism, telling Fox News Digital: “This fight is not about the money; it is about holding the left accountable for the worst weaponization of government in our nation’s history.”
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