In huge omnibus bills, like the Big Beautiful Bill as named by Trump using his best words, there are nuggets buried throughout that few know about or consider when voting. After all, there are the big issues that demand attention, and then there are the great many little issues that get tossed in for good measure. And that’s the situation with the bill to end the government shut down and reopen government, which garnered 60 votes from all but one Republican senator and the five Democratic senators who caved.

Not that it has anything to do with the shut down, or anything to do with trying to construct some rationalization for the Democratic turncoats to pretend they achieved something and didn’t merely give up in the face of Trump’s intransigence, but the Republicans snuck in a little nugget for their own in the bill.

A spending package expected to be approved as part of a deal to reopen the government would create a wide legal avenue for senators to sue for as much as half a million dollars each when federal investigators search their phone records without notifying them.

The provision, tucked into a measure to fund the legislative branch, appears to immediately allow for eight G.O.P. senators to sue the government over their phone records being seized in the course of the investigation by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, into the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

This is what the Dem’s got in exchange for capitulating? They must be so proud of themselves.

The provision would make it a violation of the law to not notify a senator if their phone records or other metadata was taken from a service provider like a phone company. There are some exceptions, such as 60-day delays in notification if the senator is considered the target of an investigation.

The language of the bill states that “any senator whose Senate data, or the Senate data of whose Senate office, has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any federal department or agency.”

The kicker is that the provision is retroactive to 2022. What an unusual thing to do, as if something happened in 2022 which was deliberately intended to be included for the benefit of eight GOP senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.

During hearings, these senators claimed that Special Counsel Jack Smith “tapped” their phones and eavesdropped. This was false. Smith subpoenaed telephone records of calls, which was pertinent to the investigation to ascertain who was communicating with whom. Under the Third Party Doctrine, which allows access to this information that’s in the hands of the telephone companies, this is lawful for you, me and senators. Remember that “no one is above the law” mantra everybody loves to throw at the other team? There was nothing remotely unlawful or improper about this.

But even if the argument was that senators should somehow be immune from the Doctrine that applies to the rest of us, this nugget doesn’t merely prohibit access, but pays out a $500,000 gift to the poor, maligned senators.

Each violation would be worth at least $500,000 in any legal claim, according to the bill language. The bill would also sharply limit the way the government could resist such a claim, taking away any government claims of qualified or sovereign immunity to fight a lawsuit over the issue.

And if anyone thinks this would nonetheless fail in court, consider that Pam Bondi’s DoJ, which will defend the United States against these claims, chose to pay a gift of $4.975 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt for a claim that would have certainly failed in court had the nation been competently represented.

Granted, the total that would come out of taxpayer dollars is a mere $4 million, a pittance in the scheme of monies given to Argentina, there is something unseemly about it being paid to Republican senators for having endured the same investigatory intrusion that the government can do to you, me and everybody but these senators whenever it pleases.

So what does this have to do with the deal made by the five Democrats to break ranks with the rest of their caucus and cave in to Trump’s demands? Absolutely nothing, except that the capitulation wasn’t merely to Trump but to their fellow senators across the aisle who wanted a little walking around money to soothe their outrage over Smith’s using the normal investigatory tools to find out whether any of these senators were complicit in the January 6th insurrection. And this is what the five Democratic weasels agreed to.