House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed Sunday that his chamber will take a vote later this week on eliminating a provision in the spending bill that ended the government shutdown, which compensated GOP senators whose phone records were seized during former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“We probably will repeal that provision,” Johnson (R-La.) told “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream. “That bill’s already been filed. I had to commit to my members that we would do that.”
Currently, up to nine Senate Republicans would be able to sue the government and be eligible for up to $500,000 in damages, plus attorneys’ fees, for each instance in which their call logs were coughed up to the feds. A payout for one incident apiece could cost taxpayers about $4.5 million.
The stopgap bill passed the House last week, despite Johnson admitting he was “frustrated” with the clause being inserted in the measure.
A vote on repealing the measure is set for Wednesday, House Republican sources tell The Post.
The controversial provision mandates that senators be notified when federal investigators target lawmakers in criminal investigations, need certain Senate office data, or move to acquire certain electronic records of a senator.
If a senator doesn’t get notified, they will be permitted to bring a civil suit against the government. Critically, the provision is retroactive to 2022, so it applies to the senators whose phone records were obtained by the Arctic Frost probe.
Scores of rank-and-file House Republicans raged against the provision that was snuck into the government funding bill and complained their Senate peers leveraged the urgent need to reopen the government to jam them with that measure.
“I have since talked to [Senate Majority] Leader [John] Thune and the senators who were involved in that, and their motivation was pure,” Johnson explained. “What they were trying to do is put teeth into the provision of law that prevents these abuses like Jack Smith and these rogue prosecutors who weaponize the DOJ to go after political enemies.”
“There ought to be a penalty for that so that we can deter further action like that in the future,” he added. “The optics of it weren’t great because it looked like retroactivity and they’d be able to pay themselves for something they endured.”
The speaker claimed he discussed a more “meaningful and reasonable” approach and predicted that they’ll likely “all get together on the same page.”
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The Arctic Frost probe began in April 2022 and investigated efforts by some of the president’s allies to overturn the 2020 election by presenting an alternative slate of electors to Congress. Ultimately, Smith took it over shortly after it was opened.
Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released a Sept. 27, 2023, document showing that the FBI got approval to run a cellular analysis on eight sitting senators and one House lawmaker as part of the probe.
Shortly after that, Grassley revealed that up to 10 sitting GOP lawmakers, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), had been targeted by the Arctic Frost probe.
In May of 2023, Smith slapped subpoenas against Verizon and AT&T to get telephone toll records. Verizon furnished the toll records on eight sitting GOP senators, according to revelations from Grassley’s office. AT&T pushed back on demands from Smith’s team and ultimately didn’t provide the data because his team didn’t follow up.
Those records showed who the lawmakers called, but didn’t provide details about the contents of those calls.
Multiple GOP-led committees in both chambers of Congress are currently revisiting the Arctic Frost probe. Last month, for example, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called on Smith to sit for an interview.
Earlier this month, Jordan requested documents from AT&T and Verizon about their engagements with Smith’s team.
