President Barack Obama will veto legislation that would allow families of American terror victims to sue foreign governments involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks, the White House said Monday.
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The House unanimously passed the legislation on Friday despite the Obama administration’s months-old concerns and efforts to secure language changes.
King said September 11 families deserve their day in court and he’s confident Congress will override the president’s veto, WCBS 880’s Sean Adams reported.
Obama’s opposition to the bill has infuriated lawmakers and the families of 9/11 victims. That position seemed at least somewhat validated when the French parliament member Pierre Lellouche, who serves as chairman of the rough equivalent in France of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would pursue legislation that would permit French citizens to sue the United States with cause.
“That’s not an effective, forceful way for us to respond to terrorism”, Earnest said. “Why-such-suits-could-backfire-video” class=”local_link” target=”_blank”>passed by the Senate in May and the House on Friday, was originally conceived amid speculation that some Saudi officials had connections to attackers who had a hand in the attacks of 2001, which took the lives of nearly 3,000.
The 9/11 attacks hold special resonance in Buchanan’s district as terrorists lived and trained in the area and President George W. Bush was at an elementary school in Sarasota that morning.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that Obama will veto the bill, as he “feels very strongly about this”, as it “opens up the U.S.to being hauled into courts around the world”.
Established in 1981, the GCC consists of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
But Earnest indicated the White House would continue its lobbying campaign against the measure as a last-ditch attempt to ensure it does not become law.
JASTA is a bill that allows 9/11 victims and their families to sue Saudi Arabia in USA federal court for its alleged role in indirectly financing the attacks.
The White House has threatened a veto of the bill before, but the latest statement – coming on the heels of House passage of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act last Friday – was its most definitive to date. In the House, there seemed little appetite for the bill this spring, when it landed in the House Judiciary Committee, but was then suddenly pushed to the House floor without any debates.
Earnest also said the White House was also concerned that the bill would open up the U.S. to be sued by individuals overseas. However, the pages failed to provide hard evidence that the government was in any way complicit in the attack.
The Arab League, a regional organization of 22 Arab countries, said that the bill could worsen relations between countries and have negative impacts on the already unstable region, WAM News reported. “Additionally, the bill authorizes federal courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over and impose liability on a person who commits, or aids, abets, or conspires to commit, an act of worldwide terrorism against a US national”.
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Obama was expected to meet with Congressional leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on Monday afternoon to discuss the bill.
