These elitist bastards don’t care about the government spying on American citizens. But when they are spied on,they are outraged and demand millions of dollars. Millions of dollars provided by the taxpayers.
The government spies on the government, gets caught, taxpayers are billed.
Senate Republicans, led by Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), successfully inserted a controversial provision into the bipartisan continuing resolution (CR) package that ended the government shutdown. This language, tucked into the fiscal year 2026 legislative branch appropriations bill (part of a three-bill "minibus" advanced by the Senate on November 10 and cleared by the House on November 12), creates a retroactive legal pathway for U.S. senators to sue the federal government for damages if their phone records are obtained without prior notice during investigations. The provision explicitly waives sovereign immunity and bars qualified immunity defenses, potentially exposing the government (and by extension, investigators like former Special Counsel Jack Smith) to lawsuits seeking **at least $500,000 per violation**—potentially totaling millions if multiple violations are claimed.
This directly targets the 2023 subpoenas issued under Smith's Jan. 6 investigation (Operation "Arctic Frost"), where phone toll records (call logs, not content) from eight Republican senators were lawfully obtained without their knowledge to trace communications around the Capitol riot. Republicans have framed this as "spying" or "abuse of power" by the Biden DOJ, despite Smith's team defending it as standard procedure. The provision applies retroactively to January 1, 2022, making those eight senators immediately eligible to sue.
#### Key Details of the Provision
- **What It Does**:
- Requires telecom providers to notify senators' offices and the Senate Sergeant at Arms before disclosing data.
- Allows any senator (or their office) to file a civil suit against the U.S. if data is "acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed" without notice.
- Damages: Minimum $500,000 per violation, plus attorney fees; no cap mentioned, so higher awards are possible.
- Scope: Limited to senators only—House members (e.g., Rep. Mike Kelly, whose records were also subpoenaed) are excluded, drawing intra-GOP criticism.
- **Insertion Process**: Thune added it quietly during negotiations, with input from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA, Judiciary Chair). It passed the Senate 60-40 (with eight Democrats joining all 52 Republicans) and the House without amendment, heading to President Trump's desk.
#### Affected Senators and Context
The provision uniquely benefits these eight GOP senators whose records were subpoenaed on September 27, 2023, as part of Smith's probe into Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 election:
| Senator | State | Party | Notes |
|----------------------|-------|-------|-------|
| Lindsey Graham | SC | R | Former Judiciary Chair; vocal Trump ally. |
| Marsha Blackburn | TN | R | Pushed Jan. 6-related conspiracy theories. |
| Bill Hagerty | TN | R | Finance Committee member. |
| Josh Hawley | MO | R | Raised fist on Jan. 6; objected to certification. |
| Dan Sullivan | AK | R | Armed Services Committee. |
| Tommy Tuberville | AL | R | Delayed certification on Jan. 6. |
| Ron Johnson | WI | R | Spread election fraud claims. |
| Cynthia Lummis | WY | R | Newer senator; crypto advocate. |
| 
