The House unanimously passed an amendment to a government funding bill stripping senators swept up in the “Arctic Frost” investigation of the ability to sue the federal government for $500,000 in damages.
The amendment will make passing the final spending bills in the Senate an uphill battle. It came the same day that former special counsel Jack Smith was appearing before the House Judiciary Committee.
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The Senate included the lucrative provision in a government funding bill last year that ended the longest government shutdown in history. It allows senators to sue the federal government for upwards of $500,000 if their phone records were collected as part of Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election — code-named “Arctic Frost.”
The decision angered many House Republicans who saw it as a special giveaway to members of the upper chamber.
“The Senate was so thoroughly convinced of the House’s irrelevance that they thought that they would literally insert a self-enrichment scheme into the legislation and get away with it,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) said last November.
The provision reportedly even caused a rift between House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).
House GOP leadership initially passed legislation to repeal the special benefit last year. The push, however, did not get anywhere in the Senate. Thune has argued Smith spying on the phone records of senators “demands some accountability.”
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Some senators, such as Lindsey Graham of (R-SC), whose phone records were swept up in the “Arctic Frost” investigation, have said they will not pursue the windfall.
“The idea that I would settle this claim for $500,000 is silly,” Graham told reporters last year. “I’m gonna make it hurt as much as I possibly can so nobody will do this again.”