Speaker Mike Johnson announced plans to pursue legislation next week that would repeal a Senate provision in a major spending package that incensed House Republicans and threatened to prolong the partial government shutdown.
The must-pass spending measure drew eleventh-hour objections from House members of both parties after the discovery in recent days of a provision that would allow senators to sue for at least $500,000 each when federal investigators search their phone records in a judicially sanctioned probe without notifying them.
It would also apply retroactively, meaning at least 10 senators whose records were searched by former special counsel John L. “Jack” Smith in his probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol would automatically be entitled to big payouts.
