House Passes Bill to Repeal Allowing Senators to Sue U.S. Over Phone Surveillance
The House voted 426-0 Wednesday night to pass its bill to repeal language in the package to end the government shutdown that allows senators to sue federal agencies for accessing their phone records without notice (HR-6019), as expected (see 2511190063).…
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has been resistant to calls for the upper chamber to also pass HR-6019, despite House lawmakers’ complaints that the lawsuit language applied only to senators (see 2511130050). Thune added the provision to the shutdown bill following reports that the FBI and former Special Counsel Jack Smith accessed phone records of several Republicans without notice as part of the Arctic Frost probe of the Jan. 6 Capitol siege (see 2510170039).