WASHINGTON — The U.S. House voted unanimously Wednesday to repeal a funding bill provision that allows Sen. Tommy Tuberville and other senators to sue the government for hundreds of thousands of dollars for searching their phone records without their knowledge.
The bill now moves to the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune has not committed one way or another to holding a vote to strip away the provision that was slipped into the bill to reopen the government.
All of Alabama’s seven House members voted with the rest of the chamber to rescind the language. Tucking the provision into the funding bill immediately drew the ire of House members on both sides of the aisle last week, and that frustration carried to this week. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, called the addition “way out of line” last Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Tuberville told Alabama Daily News he plans to sue over federal investigators obtaining his phone records as part of their investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. He did not clarify if he would sue the federal government or just the Biden administration officials.
“I’m gonna sue the heck out of them,” Tuberville said. “100%. Everybody involved.”
The provision allows senators to sue for $500,000 if their phone records are obtained without prior notification, except if they are subjects of a criminal investigation. They can sue for $500,000 for each violation.
It’s retroactive to 2022, which would include Tuberville and the seven other Republican senators whose phone data was investigated as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 probe. The search included their phone calls from Jan. 4 to Jan. 7, 2021. The contents of the calls were not accessed.
Last week, Alabama’s senior senator posted on X, he would “sue the living hell out of every Biden official involved in this” if Jack Smith was not disbarred and arrested and Judge James Boasberg, who signed off on the subpoenas, was not impeached. Tuberville has repeatedly called for Boasberg’s impeachment over the matter.
On Wednesday, before the House voted, Tuberville said he is not interested in the money.
“I’m not for a monetary gain in it,” Tuberville told ADN. “But there needs to be some kind of penalty for people that break the law when they’re in control.”
He wouldn’t directly say whether or not he supports the House’s effort to repeal the provision.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, whose phone records were also searched, doubled down in his support of the provision, telling reporters he’s “definitely going to sue.”
“So it’s very important that people who’ve been abused by the government have a private right of action,” Graham said.
But other GOP senators, like Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, who was also part of the Jan. 6 investigation, said he will not seek damages “for myself paid for with taxpayer dollars.”
A group of Senate Democrats introduced the Anti-Cash Grab Act Tuesday, aimed at repealing the provision.
“It’s a political cash grab—plain and simple, and our bill puts an end to it. Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree that ripping off American taxpayers is bad policy,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-AZ, said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Thune defended the reasoning behind tailoring the provision to only senators, instead of also giving the authority to House members or organizations.
“When it comes to allowing a federal government agency, the Justice Department in this case, to collect information, private information on individual senators, we think that is a violation of separation of powers under the Constitution,” Thune told reporters.
He added that the Republican conference will continue to discuss how to move forward after the House vote.
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