The House on Thursday unanimously voted to repeal a law allowing senators to sue the federal government for $500,000 or more in damages over phone toll records obtained during former Special Counsel Jack Smith's Jan. 6 investigation into President Donald Trump.
The vote was 427-0.
The provision being repealed, known as the "spy clause," stemmed from an amendment the Senate approved in November as part of a government funding bill.
That amendment allowed senators to sue the federal government if their official phone records were accessed without prior notice, following GOP outrage over Smith's collection of lawmakers' metadata during his "Arctic Frost" investigation.
House Republicans sharply criticized the Senate GOP for inserting the lawsuit provision into the spending package, calling it "self-serving" and improperly added without House input.
Several House GOP leaders vowed to remove it, triggering tensions between Republicans in the two chambers.
The repeal language is being attached to the Department of Homeland Security spending bill. The lawsuit provision had been included in a three-bill spending package signed into law by Trump last year.
The vote comes as House leaders push to pass the final tranche of this year's spending bills, an effort complicated by Democrat concerns that DHS funding does not adequately address Trump's mass deportation policies.
The House has already approved eight of the 12 annual appropriations bills. If the remaining four pass Thursday, the legislation will move to the Senate, with final action required before a Jan. 30 deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown.
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