Barack Obama is set to veto a bill that would allow the survivors and victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabia. The Senate has been aiming to leave Washington as soon as this week, before that deadline, and the House next week, and lawmakers would not be in Washington again until after the November 8 elections. Other measures, like a bipartisan one that would seek to block the sale of some tanks to the kingdom, are also on the horizon.
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The House passed JASTA last Friday with a voice vote that confirmed a Senate vote in May.
The White House issued a veto threat Tuesday over a House bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to transfer any terrorism detainees from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba to the mainland US or another country. “We don’t feel this is fast-track in any way shape or form”. “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 USA national”. “We have made a lot of important progress already, ” McConnell said, adding that he expects “to discuss the progress and path forward” later at the White House. “Congress itself could have investigated lingering questions about 9/11, but instead is delegating those tasks to the unelected judiciary”.
The legislation, which also passed the Senate by a wide margin in May, would narrow the scope of foreign sovereign immunity by authorizing federal courts to hear criminal and civil cases against foreign states or officials suspected to have been involved in acts of global terrorism, according to a Congressional Research Service summary. It also allows Americans to file financial claims against those who funded the attacks.
The US senate voted unanimously in support of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act in May. Earnest also warned about “the potential consequences of rolling back this core principle of worldwide law”.
If the bill becomes law, it will spark years and years of what is sure to be inconclusive litigation over the possible Saudi role in 9/11, with no likely resolution for the attacks’ victims and their families. The sponsors of the bipartisan bill in the Senate, Sens. It submits those countries to a whole list of limitations and restrictions that isolate them not just from the U.S., but in many cases, the rest of the world, he said. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “If they’ve done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about”. “And allowing this bill to come into law would increase the risk that they face”.
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“The other concern that we have also articulated is that this law actually opens up the United States to risk being hauled into court in countries around the world”.
