House votes against letting GOP senators sue over Jack Smith records

The House of Representatives voted unanimously against a provision allowing Republican senators whose phone records were seized by former special counsel Jack Smith to sue the federal government.

This provision was included in the recently passed bill aimed at ending the 43-day government shutdown, which President Donald Trump signed into law last week.

Although its supporters say the provision is necessary to give senators recourse when the executive branch oversteps its constitutional bounds and attacks congressional communications, the measure’s inclusion at the last minute outraged both Republicans and Democrats, underscoring the still-present tensions between the House and Senate.

The repeal passed by a vote of 426-0, with 210 Democrats and 216 Republicans in the count.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., leaves the chamber to speak with reporters after the final vote to end the longest government shutdown in history, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

Dubbed “Requiring Senate Notification of Senate Data,” the provision would allow senators directly targeted by former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation to sue the U.S. government for up to $500,000.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who helped craft part of the successful funding deal, told Fox News Digital he even feared it could derail the final vote to end the shutdown.

“This was added to the Senate without our knowledge,” Cole said. “It was a real confidence builder…I mean, all of a sudden this appears in the bill, and we’re faced with one or the other: leave this here, or we take it out, we have to go to a conference, and the government won’t be reopened.”

It was included in the bill by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and received the green light from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sources confirmed to Fox News Digital last week.

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Thune included the provision in the bill at the request of Republican Senate members, a source familiar with the negotiations, which included Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital.

It was a big point of contention when the internal regulations committee met to prepare the bill for a final vote last Tuesday evening. Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Austin Scott, R-Ga., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., all shared House Democrats’ frustration with the measure, but they made clear it would not stand in the way of ending what had become the longest shutdown in history.

Even Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., seemed blindsided by the decision.

“I wasn’t informed about it at all,” Johnson told reporters last week. “I was frustrated, as were my colleagues here, and thought it was untimely and inappropriate. So we will ask, and strongly urge, our colleagues in the Senate to repeal this.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a press conference with other members of the Senate Republican leadership following a policy luncheon in Washington, DC, October 28, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

These Republicans agreed with the motivations that led their Senate counterparts to want to take legal action, but bristled at the idea that it would come at the expense of American taxpayers.

Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital that senators “were wronged, no doubt in my mind” but added that its scope was too narrow.

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“This provision doesn’t allow other Americans to have recourse. It doesn’t even allow the President of the United States, who was also wrongly monitored and prosecuted by the Department of Justice – they didn’t even include President Trump in this case,” Rose said.

And while several senators eligible for taxpayer-funded lawsuits distanced themselves from the issue amid the outcry, others stuck to their positions.

“My phone records have been seized. I’m not going to put up with this bullshit. I’m going to sue,” Graham said on “Hannity” Tuesday night. He said he would seek “tens of millions of dollars.”

Cruz also told Fox News Digital that he does not support repealing the provision.

And Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., defended the provision in comments to Politico.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. during a press conference at the United States Capitol on June 20, 2024 in Washington, DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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“I wish we could defend our branch when the DOJ gets out of hand,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., also suggested to reporters Wednesday that he favored the measure.

“I would simply say that you have an independent and co-equal branch of government whose members have, through illegal means, had their phone records acquired — spied on, if you will, through a weaponized Biden Justice Department,” Thune said. “For me, that requires a certain responsibility.”

He added: “I think ultimately this is something that all members of Congress, both the House and the Senate, will probably want as protection, and we were thinking about the institution of the Senate and individual senators in the future.”