Obama’s veto of 9/11 bill will be challenged

President Barack Obama vetoes a bill that would allow families of victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue the Saudi Arabian government, setting up a confrontation with Congress.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama vetoed legislation Friday that would allow families of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot, setting up an extraordinary confrontation with a Congress that unanimously backed the bill and has vowed to uphold it.

Obama’s long-anticipated veto of the measure, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, is the 12th of his presidency. But unless those who oppose the bill can persuade lawmakers to drop their support by next week, it will lead to the first congressional override during Obama’s presidency — a familiar experience for presidents in the waning months of their terms.

Obama issued the veto behind closed doors Friday without fanfare, reluctant to call attention to a debate that has pitted him against the families of terrorism victims. Not long before he did so, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee who had previously backed the measure, confirmed that if she were in the Oval Office, she would sign it.

The leaders of both chambers, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, have said they expect the override vote to be successful, which requires a two-thirds majority.

Still, pressure is building on Congress to reconsider the measure, whose passage underlined the lasting political clout of the 9/11 families that have long demanded it — and the diminishing standing of Saudi Arabia and its supporters in Washington.

Obama objects to the measure, arguing that it would threaten American national security interests by upending long-standing principles of international law that shield governments from lawsuits, potentially opening the U.S. to a raft of litigation in foreign countries.

But supporters note that those principles have several exceptions, and contend they are merely seeking to add another narrow one that would allow U.S. courts to hold foreign governments responsible if they assisted or funded a terrorist attack that killed Americans in the U.S.

Saudi officials have denied that the kingdom had any role in the Sept. 11 plot, and an independent commission that investigated the attacks found “no evidence” that the government or any senior official funded it.

But the commission’s narrow wording left open the possibility that less senior officials or parts of the Saudi government had played a role.