House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Republicans will move to repeal a controversial law that would allow Republican senators who were spied on by the Biden administration to receive six-figures in damages at taxpayer expense, the New York Post reports.

“We probably will repeal that provision,” Johnson told Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream. “That bill’s already been filed. I had to commit to my members that we would do that.”

Smith's spying

Last month, Senate Republicans led by Chuck Grassley (R-IA) disclosed that Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained phone records from eight Republican senators and one House Republican as part of Smith's sweeping effort to investigate President Trump and his allies over the 2020 election. Smith's Arctic Frost investigation targeted dozens of people in Trump's orbit and led to Smith's unsuccessful election-year push to prosecute Trump for "election interference."

Smith has defended the probing of Republican legislators as simply routine law enforcement work, but Republicans have blasted the surveillance as blatantly political and a threat to the Senate's independence.

The call logs that Smith obtained included sensitive details like the time and location of the calls and who was called, but not the contents of the calls themselves. The records were obtained for the dates surrounding the January 6th, 2021, protest at the Capitol.

In response to Smith's prying, Republicans in the Senate, led by John Thune (R-Sd.), introduced a measure empowering U.S. senators to sue the federal government for up to $500,000 if their data is requested without their knowledge, with exceptions if they themselves are targets of a criminal investigation.

House, Senate split

The provision was included at the last minute in the spending bill ending the recent government shutdown, angering House Republicans who called the payout scheme sneaky and an inappropriate use of tax dollars.

Johnson, who initially called the Senate's move "way out of line," has since softened his tone, saying the provision addresses a real need to protect lawmakers from rogue prosecutors, just in the wrong way.

“I have since talked to [Senate Majority] Leader [John] Thune and the senators who were involved in that, and their motivation was pure,” Johnson said. “What they were trying to do is put teeth into the provision of law that prevents these abuses like Jack Smith and these rogue prosecutors who weaponize the DOJ to go after political enemies.”

Vote to repeal

Sources told the New York Post that a vote to repeal the provision will happen Wednesday.

Speaker Johnson suggested Republicans will replace it with something similar, but narrower in scope. He said the Senate's provision had poor "optics," citing the retroactive window, which covered those targeted in the Arctic Frost probe.

“There ought to be a penalty for that so that we can deter further action like that in the future,” he added. “The optics of it weren’t great because it looked like retroactivity and they’d be able to pay themselves for something they endured.”

Regardless of optics, most of the Republicans who were targeted by Smith say they won't seek damages anyway.

At least one though, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says he would file a lawsuit to set an example about government weaponization.