Protesters send senior Republican Jason Chaffetz an invoice after he accuses them of being paid

Chair of House Oversight Committee attempts to discredit protesters by saying they were 'shipped in' and describing heckling as 'a paid attempt to bully and intimidate'

Donald Trump has accused protesters who oppose him of being paid (Getty Images)

An activist in Utah has sent an invoice to a senior Republican legislator who accused protesters of being paid to disrupt his event.

Jason Chaffetz was heckled at an open meeting last week by hundreds of people who queued for hours to get inside, over what they see as his failure to investigate the President's business enterprises and the potential conflicts of interest they create.

The protesters chanted “do your job!” at Mr Chaffetz, who is chair of the House Oversight Committee and therefore holds the power to curb any possible effort by Donald Trump or his family to leverage the White House for personal gain.

But rather than listening to his constituents, Mr Chaffetz attempted to discredit their position by saying he believed the protesters were “shipped in”, and described the incident as “a paid attempt to bully and intimidate”.

Following the example of his party leader, Donald Trump, he insisted the protesters had been paid to be there.

“You could see it online a couple days before, a concerted effort in part to just cause chaos,” he said, according to local paper The Daily Kos.

Protesters responded with a mixture of outrage and derision, and now a mock invoice is circulating on social media, addressed to Mr Chaffetz's office in Provo, Utah, and asking for $500 for an activist who thanked the politician for "bringing it to our attention that this was a paid event”.

The document lists a $400 charge for “paid protest hours” during Mr Chaffetz’s meeting on 9 February at Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights, Utah.

It also lists two $50 fees for “being callously dismissed by representative” and “being labelled out-of-state radical”.

The bill, with a due date of 1 March, additionally urges him to “please stop dismissing your constituents”.

Mr Chaffetz is yet to respond to the invoice.

After the protest, he said: “[I’ll] never satisfy their desire to bring down Donald Trump.

“People are asking me to use the power of Congress to do a full-on fishing expedition to investigate him personally on things that are not required by law. I think my doing that would be an abuse of power.”

Mr Trump also said demonstrators at his inauguration were paid — a line which was then repeated by his aides and press secretary in an apparent attempt to delegitimise protests.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Fox News at the time: "I mean, protesting has become a profession now."

He added: "They have every right to do that. Don’t get me wrong, but I think that we need to call it what it is. It’s not these organic uprisings that we’ve seen through the last several decades. You know, the Tea Party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid, Astroturf-type movement.”

No evidence has been provided to support the assertions, which have been mocked online by people questioning why they have been "working" as anarchists and protesters for years without a salary, and where they can claim remuneration.