US President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill that would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government, reports BBC.
Advertisement
The move on Friday means Obama will potentially face the first veto override in his presidency.
The bill passed the House and Senate unanimously in a rare show of full bipartisan support.
The legislation gives victims’ families the right to sue in US court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed thousands in NY, the Washington, D.C., area and Pennsylvania.
The bill removes a foreign state’s immunity to prosecution if it’s involved in terrorism on USA soil.
If the bill became law, it would allow victims’ families to sue any member of the government of Saudi Arabia thought to have played a role in any element of the attack.
Fifteen of the 19 men who carried out the 9/11 attacks were Saudi nationals.
In a break with her former boss, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said that, were she president, she would support the legislation. “If they were culpable in 9/11, they should be held accountable”.
The Times noted that a primary concern of the White House is that the bill could ultimately run the risk of increasing the odds that USA officials, military personal, and even business leaders could face legal action overseas.
“As we’ve made this case, members of Congress in both parties have indicated that they are open to the concerns that we’ve expressed – in many cases, they share them”, Earnest said at a press conference Tuesday, as reported by NBC.
Even so, the separate 9/11 commission, chaired by former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, concluded, “Saudi Arabia has always been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization”. The allegations were never substantiated by US investigations into the attacks.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state, expressed her support for the legislation, demonstrating the hard political position the White House was faced with.
“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”, reads a statement on the official Trump campaign website. Hillary Clinton, who represented NY in the U.S. Senate on 9/11, “would sign this legislation if it came to her desk”, spokesman Jesse Lehrich told CNN. His spokesman, David Popp, said Friday the Senate will consider the veto override “as soon as practicable in this work period”.
Mr Carter said during testimony on Thursday before the senate armed services committee that it could be a problem if another country was “to behave reciprocally towards the United States”.
Advertisement
The Washington Post writes:”Congressional leaders plan to hold override votes in the coming days and supporters of the legislation say they are confident they can succeed in overturning the president’s action”.
