'Insanity!' Top Dem vows war over GOP senators' 'sick' gift to themselves

Some Senate Republicans are sneakily trying to pass a $500,000 apiece gift to themselves — but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) vowed to fight to put a stop to it.

Congress is on the brink of passing a controversial bipartisan deal to end the weekslong federal government shutdown — giving Democrats a minor concession by extending nutrition assistance for nearly a year and reversing firings by the Trump administration since October, but not giving them their key demand of Affordable Care Act subsidy extension, apart from a guarantee for a separate vote on it later.

However, a lesser-noticed provision slipped into the bill would give Senate Republicans who were revealed to have been surveilled as part of special counsel Jack Smith's criminal investigation into the 2020 election coup plot, the ability to sue the federal government for up to $500,000 — even though such monitoring is standard practice in a criminal investigation. The provision has raised alarms that President Donald Trump could just settle with them instantly to give taxpayer money to his political supporters.

A reporter asked Jeffries on Tuesday about the added provision, which would allow senators to sue the U.S. government for $500,000.

"What do you say to that, and is there any chance that that will be removed from the CR?" the reporter asked.

"House Democrats are going to offer an amendment before the Rules Committee to get that self-dealing sick provision out of the spending agreement," said Jeffries. "The notion that eight Republican senators, signed off by [Majority Leader] John Thune and the Republicans, apparently in the Senate and in the House, would give themselves the ability, essentially, to rip millions of taxpayer dollars away from the American people so they can line their pockets, because these people were insurrectionist sympathizers, is insanity."

"We're going to tattoo that provision, just like we're going to tattoo the Republican health care crisis, on the foreheads of every single House Republican who dares vote for this bill," Jeffries added.