Senators rage against phone data payout measure won by Thune

Source: CNN Politics

11/18/2025 08:20 PM EST


The House plans to vote Wednesday to repeal a provision that could award eight GOP senators hundreds of thousands of dollars for having their phone records seized without their knowledge during a Biden-era probe. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who secured the measure, is standing his ground. “The House is going to do what they are going to do with it,” he told reporters Tuesday night. “It doesn’t apply to them.”

But many senators from both parties are eager to roll back the legislative language they didn’t know Thune secretly negotiated with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the government funding package that ended the longest shutdown in history last week. Republicans could revolt if leadership doesn’t give them a vote to overturn it.

In interviews Tuesday with nearly a dozen lawmakers, confusion, frustration and anger ran rampant about what has quickly become branded as a politically toxic, taxpayer-funded windfall for a select few. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) went so far as to quip there could be “some stabbings” at the Senate GOP’s weekly lunch Wednesday when the topic will inevitably get discussed.

“Whoever put this in had an obligation to tell us about it, and they didn’t,” said Kennedy. “There’s something called trust and good faith around here.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/18/thune-phone-records-payout-jack-smith-00658393