“This would invite consequential decisions to be made based upon incomplete information and risk having different courts reaching different conclusions about the culpability of individual foreign governments and their role in terrorist activities directed against the United States”, Obama said.
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President Obama on Friday vetoed legislation that would have made it easier for family members and victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, setting up override votes in the U.S. House and Senate next week.
“Removing sovereign immunity in USA courts from foreign governments that are not designated as state sponsors of terrorism, based exclusively on allegations that such foreign governments’ actions overseas had a connection to terrorism-related injuries on U.S. soil, threatens to undermine these longstanding principles that protect the United States, our forces, and our personnel”, the president wrote in his veto message to Congress. Fifteen of the 19 terrorists were Saudi and that nation’s leaders have previously opposed the legislation and denied involvement.
Slamming the veto decision, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, “President Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act is shameful and will go down as one of the low points of his presidency”.
While expressing “deep sympathy” for the families of the victims, Obama said the law would be “detrimental to United States national interests”.
“I hope that it can be put off, and cooler heads will prevail”, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, said this week, calling efforts to move ahead with the bill in its current form “a mistake”.
His administration argues that other nations could act reciprocally, changing their laws so foreign citizens could take up lawsuits against the USA – a nation with “a larger global presence, by far, than any other country”.
However, Congress is expected to have sufficient support to override the president’s veto.
The veto marks Obama’s 12th during his presidency, and all of the previous vetoes have held.
But the White House said the bill, which doesn’t refer specifically to Saudi Arabia, could backfire by opening up the USA government and its officials to lawsuits by anyone accusing the US of supporting terrorism, rightly or wrongly. Other countries might be less likely to work with the USA on national security, the president wrote.
The allegations were never substantiated by later USA investigations.
Obama said in a statement that the bill which was passed by the US Senate in May could lead to lawsuits against its own officials for actions by foreign groups that receive Washington’s aid, military equipment or training. “She would sign this legislation if it came to her desk”, Clinton spokesman Jesse Lehrich said in a statement.
“If the Saudis did nothing wrong, they should not fear this legislation. The families of the victims of 9/11 deserve their day in court”. “If they were culpable in 9/11, they should be held accountable”.
Josh Earnest, the President’s spokesman, has repeatedly said that expanding the basis for US citizens to sue foreign sovereigns would expose USA military, diplomats and even private companies to litigation overseas. However the 9/11 Commission, which had access to the formerly classified pages at the time, wrote in its 2004 final report that “it found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization”.
Although some Democrats have expressed readiness to flip their vote when it comes back to Congress, the Senate will nearly certainly override the bill.
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Both Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who co-sponsored the bill, have stated that they believe they have the votes to override the veto, according to NBC.
