Congressional Republicans clash over part of deal that ended government shutdown: 'Untimely and inappropriate'
Mike Johnson, Tom Cole and other strong names in the House protested a provision added by the Senate on the 'Arctic Frost' case.
Mike Johnson on Capitol Hill/ Alex Wroblewski
Republicans in the House of Representatives are questioning their colleagues in the Senate over a provision they entered late in the legislation that ended the longest government shutdown in history. The House is expected to vote in the coming weeks to repeal a provision related to the 'Arctic Frost' case.
On Wednesday night, the House gave the green light to the deal reached in the Senate to reopen the government. The vote ended with 222 in favor and 209 opposed. Only two Republicans opposed, while six Democrats went along with reopening the government. The group of six consisted of Henry Cuellar, Jared Golden, Tom Suozzi, Adam Gray, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Don Davis. President Donald Trump signed the bill in the Oval Office, surrounded by GOP lawmakers.
Just two days later, some unease appeared among House Republicans, who are complaining about a last-minute addition to the bill made by John Thune, Republican majority leader in the Senate.
The provision in question was dubbed the "Senate Notification Requirement for Senate Data" and would allow Republican senators involved in the 'Arctic Frost' investigation to sue the government for up to $500,000.
Some of the Republicans who were outraged by the provision were Chip Roy, Austin Scott and Morgan Griffith, though they didn't let that annoyance stop them from voting to reopen the government.
"Those Republicans agreed with the motivations behind their Senate counterparts wanting to sue but bristled over the notion that it would come at the expense of U.S. taxpayers," Fox News reported on the matter.
"I was just as surprised by the inclusion of that language as anyone. I had no prior notice of it at all. I was frustrated, as my colleagues are over here, and I thought it was untimely and inappropriate. So we'll be requesting, strongly urging, our Senate colleagues to repeal that," said Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives.
"It had been done without our knowledge. I mean, it had been added in the Senate without our knowledge. It was a real trust factor. I mean, all of a sudden, this pops up in the bill, and we're confronted with either leave this in here, or we pull it out, we have to go to conference, and the government doesn't get reopened," added Tom Cole (R-OK), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
Rep. John Rose, R-Tennessee, has already introduced a bill to repeal the provision.
What is the 'Arctic Frost' case?
As revealed by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, between 2022 and 2023 the DOJ conducted a secret investigation to track leaks of classified congressional information to the press.
In that framework, subpoenas were issued to access phone records of at least ten senators and one congressman, all Republicans.
In addition, it was discovered that Biden's DOJ accompanied those subpoenas with gag orders prohibiting the companies from notifying lawmakers that they were under investigation. While Verizon complied with these instructions, AT&T partially refused to comply, claiming that the subpoena was excessive and violated congressional privilege.
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