Los Angeles Times

After veto override, some misgivings

GOP leaders concede that the 9/11 litigation bill Obama tried to block may need fixing.

- By Lisa Mascaro and Michael A. Memoli lisa.mascaro@latimes.com michael.memoli@latimes.com

WASHINGTON — Less than a day after Congress overrode President Obama’s veto of a bill that would let Sept. 11 victims’ families sue Saudi Arabia, top GOP leaders said they might need to fix the new law to protect national security interests.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) both acknowledg­ed Thursday that the bill, which narrows a foreign nation’s immunity from legal challenge, could backfire by exposing the United States to retaliator­y lawsuits by foreign victims of terrorism.

“There may be some work to be done,” Ryan told reporters.

The White House had warned as much in an unsuccessf­ul last-minute barrage by the Defense secretary, CIA director and other top national security officials to try to stop the override. All wrote weighty letters to Congress voicing their concerns about the potential harm, leading some lawmakers to publicly express reservatio­ns ahead of this week’s vote. But most went ahead and supported the override anyway.

Republican­s in Congress were eager to deliver a rebuke to the White House with their first-ever win in a veto showdown against President Obama. The Sept. 11 bill also offered a popular piece of bipartisan legislatio­n, despite heavy lobbying from the Saudi Arabian government, a key U.S. ally.

Ryan said lawmakers were focused on giving Sept. 11 families “their day in court.” However, now the speaker is worried that other countries will retaliate — as the White House had warned — by adjusting their own laws to target the U.S. and its military personnel with lawsuits.

“I would like to think there may be some work to be done to protect our service members overseas from any kind of — any kind of legal ensnaremen­ts that could occur,” Ryan said. “I’d like to think that there’s a way we could fix it so that our service members do not have legal problems overseas, while still protecting the rights of the 9/11 victims.”

McConnell also suggested that changes to the law were “worth further discussing.”

“I told the president the other day this was an issue we should have talked about much earlier,” he said.

“By the time everybody seemed to focus on some of the potential consequenc­es of it, members had already taken a position,” McConnell said. “Everybody was aware of who the potential beneficiar­ies were, but nobody really had focused on the potential downside in terms of our internatio­nal relationsh­ips. I think it was just a ball dropped.”

The White House spared no criticism of Congress for failing to heed the warnings and do its homework before voting.

“What’s true in elementary school is true in the United States Congress: Ignorance is not an excuse, particular­ly when it comes to our national security,” said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

Earnest noted that Obama spoke about the legislatio­n as far back as April, and he disputed claims from some Republican­s, including Sen. Bob Corker (RTenn.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, that the White House refused to engage in negotiatio­ns over the legislatio­n in the last week. He noted that the bill was modified this spring in response to White House concerns, but said the changes did not go far enough.

“What it mostly is, is an abject embarrassm­ent,” Earnest said. “Because I think the American people, and certainly our men and women in uniform … expect better service and leadership from the men and women that they elected to represent them.”

The victims’ families had celebrated the long-fought outcome of Wednesday’s vote, having pressed for a decade for the ability to bring their case to court.

Though 15 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, the kingdom has not been expressly implicated in the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon and the downing of Flight 93 over Pennsylvan­ia.

Few expected the legislatio­n to pass. It was hastily approved by only voice votes — one just before the 15th anniversar­y of the 2001 attacks.

Obama swiftly vetoed it, setting up the showdown.

Saudi Arabia also unleashed top-flight lobbyists to warn lawmakers off the bill, but the kingdom’s influence appeared to be waning, and few lawmakers wanted to go against the Sept. 11 families in an election year.

What happens next remains uncertain. The bill’s main author, Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, said Thursday he was willing to consider changes, but nothing that would impede the families from proceeding with the legal action.

A bipartisan group of 28 senators had written to him before the vote with their concerns.

“I will look at anything,” Schumer said. “But it has to be something that doesn’t weaken the bill and limit the right of these families to get their day in court and justice.”

One suggestion has been to limit the scope of the law more narrowly to just those victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. But Schumer dismissed that idea because he said it would offer no recourse against future state sponsors of terrorism.

When lawmakers return Nov. 15, they will have a few weeks, excluding the Thanksgivi­ng holiday, to legislate a long to-do list during the lame-duck session before the end of the year.

 ?? Mark Wilson Getty Images ?? HOUSE SPEAKER Paul D. Ryan said that “there may be some work to be done” yet on a bill that makes it easier for families of Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. The veto override was the first in the Obama era.
Mark Wilson Getty Images HOUSE SPEAKER Paul D. Ryan said that “there may be some work to be done” yet on a bill that makes it easier for families of Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. The veto override was the first in the Obama era.

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