Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett blasted a new Senate proposal Wednesday that would allow lawmakers to sue the federal government for warrantless searches conducted without their knowledge.
GOP lawmakers added a shutdown-deal provision targeting the Biden FBI’s “Arctic Frost” surveillance effort and giving senators whose phone records were secretly seized a path to sue the government for at least $500,000 per violation. Appearing on “The Evening Edit,” Jarrett said the proposal was unconstitutional, warning it violated basic due-process protections.
“It’s probably not legal. Article 1, Sections 9 and 10 forbid ex post facto laws. You can’t change the law and apply it retroactively without violating due process,” Jarrett told Elizabeth MacDonald.
Jarrett said the measure amounted to a carve-out that benefits only the lawmakers who wrote it.
“This is why people despise and distrust politicians. Why should eight senators get a legal advantage that nobody else gets? It’s self-dealing. It’s self-enrichment, giving themselves an automatic half a million bucks if they successfully sue the government for being targeted by Smith. Well, what about everybody else?” Jarrett asked. “The other 400 Republicans on Smith’s enemies list who were targeted and had their privacy invaded, their phone records seized. So, I think this was a sleazeball move by senators who inserted it into the measure secretly.”
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said in October that his carrier, AT&T, refused to release his call information but was legally blocked from alerting him because Judge James Boasberg issued an order preventing any notification. Boasberg, who previously led the D.C. District Court, signed off on confidentiality directives that left several Republican senators unaware that Special Counsel Jack Smith had quietly gathered their phone data as part of the “Arctic Frost” inquiry.
Smith’s inquiry surveilled several Republican senators, including Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.
READ: Florida Rep. Byron Donalds Slams UC Berkeley, Blasts Dems On Affordability, Healthcare Costs
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