The provision has fueled classic tensions between the House and the Senate, prompted an effort to repeal the new law, divided Republicans, and started to become fodder for primary opponents.
Signed into law by President Trump last week, the unusual addition to the spending bill fundamentally changes how investigators must treat the 100 members of the Senate.
And because it is retroactive to 2022, it also opens the door for 10 GOP senators whose records were subpoenaed by former 1special counsel Jack Smith to seek a minimum of $500,000 in compensation.
House Republicans were blindsided by and furious about its inclusion. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said after the bill passed that he was “very angry” about the lawsuit provision, and that it was “way out of line.”
“We had no idea that was dropped in at the last minute,” Johnson said.
Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) swiftly introduced legislation to strike the provision, saying that “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“The American taxpayer has suffered enough because of the last administration,” Rose wrote on the social platform X.
“It is shameful to ask them to shoulder the burden of paying U.S. Senators at least HALF A MILLION dollars because the FBI went rogue under Joe Biden.”
The retroactive measure is a response to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) revealing last month that Smith’s “Arctic Frost” investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election sought phone records from several senators and at least one House member, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), whose staffer was involved in trying to help deliver names of fake electors.
The Hill’s Emily Brooks and Rebecca Beitsch have more here.
