Congress overrides Obama’s veto of Sept. 11 bill
Families would be able to sue Saudis over alleged support for attackers
WASHINGTON — Congress voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow families of Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged backing of the attackers, handing Barack Obama the first veto override of his presidency.
Both the House and Senate voted decisively to reverse Obama’s decision to scuttle the legislation. Democrats in both chambers abandoned the president in large numbers despite warnings from Obama and top national security officials that flaws in the bill could put U.S. interests, troops, and intelligence personnel at risk.
The Senate vote was 97-1, with New Mexico Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, both Democrats, voting for the measure.
The House vote a few hours later was 348-77. New Mexico Reps. Ben Ray Luján and Michelle Lujan Grisham, both Democrats, and Republican Steve Pearce voted for the bill.
Lawmakers said their priority was the 9/11 victims and their families, not Saudi Arabia.
“The White House and the executive branch (are) far more interested in diplomatic considerations,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a sponsor of the bill. “We’re more interested in the families and in justice.”
Speaking at a forum in Washington, CIA Director John Brennan said he was concerned about how Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, would interpret the bill. He said the Saudis provide significant amounts of information to the U.S. to help foil extremist plots.
“It would an absolute shame if this legislation, in any way, influenced the Saudi willingness to continue to be among our best counterterrorism partners,” Brennan said.
Brennan, who said he visited lawmakers Wednesday to argue against an override of Obama’s veto, noted that there is a tremendous amount of Saudi investment in the United States. “Do they want to leave them here so they could potentially be attached by some type of court ruling that is going to award the litigants?” he asked.
After senators acted, White House spokesman Josh Earnest called the vote the “single most embarrassing thing” the Senate has done in decades and “an abdication” of its responsibility. He accused members of the Senate Judiciary Committee of not understanding the legislation and its impact on the military.
Five weeks before state and national elections, lawmakers refused to oppose a measure strongly supported by 9/11 families who say they are still seeking justice 15 years after attackers killed nearly 3,000 people. Saudi Arabia staunchly opposed the measure.
Despite reversing Obama’s decision, a group of senators acknowledged that defects in the bill could open a legal Pandora’s box, triggering lawsuits from people in other countries seeking redress for injuries or deaths caused by military actions in which the U.S. may have had a role.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Obama said the bill would erode sovereign immunity principles that prevent foreign litigants “from secondguessing our counterterrorism operations and other actions that we take every day.”
But proponents of the bill dismissed Obama’s concerns as unpersuasive. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, and other supporters said the bill is narrowly tailored and applies only to acts of terrorism that occur on U.S. soil.
“This bill is about respecting the voices and rights of American victims,” Cornyn said.
Families of the victims and their attorneys dismissed concerns over the legislation as fearmongering.
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, one of the Democrats who broke with Obama and voted to override, said, “The risks of shielding the perpetrators of terrorism from justice are greater than the risks this legislation may pose to America’s presence around the world.”
The legislation gives victims’ families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis.
Courts would be permitted to waive a claim of foreign sovereign immunity when an act of terrorism occurred inside U.S. borders, according to the terms of the bill.