House will vote to undo provision letting senators sue over Jan. 6-related searches

Speaker Mike Johnson said the House will vote next week to repeal a provision slipped into the bill to end the shutdown that would allow senators to sue the government for potentially millions of dollars if their data is obtained without their notification.

Johnson said he was “shocked” and “angry” when he learned about the provision, which would uniquely benefit eight Republican senators, whose phone records — but not the contents of their calls or messages — were found to have been accessed as part of the investigation that led to former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.