Republicans are in full damage-control mode after quietly sliding a provision into the government-reopening bill that could send massive taxpayer-funded payouts straight into senators’ pockets. And now that the political fallout is hitting home, the GOP is scrambling—publicly and loudly—to distance itself from a mess of its own making.
The provision, signed into law by President Trump just last week, gives any senator the right to sue for at least $500,000 if federal investigators obtained their phone records without notifying them. Because the measure is retroactive to 2022, it instantly opened the door for ten Republican senators targeted in special counsel Jack Smith’s “Arctic Frost” probe to cash in.
House Republicans claim they were blindsided by the move.
“We had no idea that was dropped in at the last minute,” Speaker Mike Johnson said, adding that he was “very angry” and blasting the provision as “way out of line.”
Rep. John Rose didn’t waste any time. He introduced legislation to kill the payout clause and slammed the entire thing as an insult to taxpayers.
“The American taxpayer has suffered enough because of the last administration,” he wrote on 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 provision wasn’t added by accident. It was slipped into the funding deal crafted by Senate Republicans, not House members—heightening the already familiar tension between the two chambers. The measure rewrites how investigators must treat senators and grants special privileges to just 100 people in the entire country. It also allows senators to sue both over the lack of notification and over any sealing order, potentially pushing payouts into the million-dollar range.
House members who were also caught up in Smith’s probe got no such special treatment. Rep. Mike Kelly, whose staffer was tied to the 2020 fake elector scheme, put it bluntly: “Do I have the same — for whatever reasons — do we have the same privileges as the Senate does? Apparently we don’t. If it was a serious problem for the senators, why wouldn’t it be a serious problem for members of the House?”
Even so, nearly every Republican still voted for the bill rather than prolong the shutdown—except Rep. Greg Steube, who opposed it specifically because of the carve-out.
Now the cleanup effort is underway. The House will vote this week on a repeal, and it’s expected to pass easily. Johnson said he complained directly to Senate Minority Leader John Thune but admitted he received no promise the Senate would take up the repeal.
And Senate Republicans? Many aren’t exactly eager to give up the chance at a paycheck.
Sen. Lindsey Graham isn’t just planning to sue—he’s promising to make it painful for taxpayers.
He told reporters he will “definitely” sue and warned, “And if you think I’m going to settle this thing for a million dollars? No. I want to make it so painful, no one ever does this again.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville went even further: he said he “will sue the living hell out of every Biden official involved in this to make sure this NEVER happens to a conservative again.”
But those vows are already becoming political liabilities.
Graham’s primary challenger, Paul Dans, didn’t wait long to pounce: “Americans are outraged that Lindsey Graham would hijack the Re Opening of the Government to stuff millions in his pocket.”
In Tennessee, the outrage comes as Rep. Rose challenges Sen. Marsha Blackburn for governor. Blackburn initially suggested she’d sue—then suddenly reversed course as the backlash mounted, saying she now supports repealing the provision.
“As I have previously said, this fight is not about the money. It is about holding the left accountable for the worst weaponization of government in our nation’s history.”
Other senators walked a careful line, wary of looking self-interested. Sen. Ron Johnson backed the provision as “a deterrent to prevent future misuse” but added he has “no plans at this time” to sue.
Sen. Josh Hawley called it “a bad idea.” Sen. Bill Hagerty said he does not want damages “paid for with taxpayer dollars.” Sen. Dan Sullivan said he didn’t know about the provision beforehand and doesn’t intend to sue.
Still, some GOP senators who stand to gain—Rick Scott, Cynthia Lummis, and Ted Cruz—have stayed silent.
The real fury boiled over in the House Rules Committee, where Republicans aired their disgust in plain English.
“There’s going to be a lot of people, if they look and understand this, are going to see it as self-serving, self-dealing kind of stuff,” Rep. Chip Roy said. “I don’t think that’s right.”
Rep. Austin Scott, who voted for the bill to end the shutdown but hated the provision, said House members were cornered.
“What they did is wrong. This should not be in this piece of legislation,” he said, arguing that the retroactivity made the whole thing impossible to defend.
He added that senators who support the payouts should put the idea up for a standalone vote—because “it would never pass.”
For now, Republicans are racing to undo a provision they quietly greenlit, hoping voters forget how quickly some senators were ready to turn a government shutdown into a payday. But the backlash—and the primary attack ads already writing themselves—suggest this fight is nowhere near over.
