The House unanimously passed a bill on Friday that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for damages, setting up a clash between the legislative branch and the White House.
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Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said the USA government should be more concerned about the families of the victims than “diplomatic niceties”.
One of the main grounds of the bill, called Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), is that 15 of the main perpetrators of those attacks were citizens of that Arab nation. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said in a statement. If they’ve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
The White House strongly opposes the legislation and worries the legislation leaves the U.S. open to similar suits.
The Obama administration has cautioned that if USA citizens can take the Saudis to court, then a foreign country could in turn sue the United States.
However, the bill faces a potential veto by President Barack Obama amid concerns that it could harm USA relations with Saudi Arabia.
Schumer and others believe they have the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto, which would be a first for this administration.
The bill passed the Senate in May, but the White House strongly urged against it.
Poe said he doesn’t know if the Saudi government had a role in the attacks.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
The bill, officially named the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, would permit 9/11 victim’s families to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia if that government is found, in a separate court, to have been involved in funding the attacks.
“We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes, denying justice to the victims of terrorism”, Goodlatte said.
Before the vote, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spoke in favor of the measure, which has stirred opposition from the administration, some foreign policy experts and Saudi Arabia, which has lobbied against it.
JASTA would remove sovereign immunity, preventing lawsuits against governments, for countries found to be involved in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. House Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed the pushback about the bill setting a negative precedent.
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Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi Foreign Minister, delivered the Kingdom’s message personally in March during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the USA before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts, The New York Times reported. Lee Zeldin, R-New York, said the bill would help the families looking for “closure” 15 years after the attacks.
