Senate votes to override Obama’s veto of 9/11 bill

By Karoun Demirjian

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The Senate on Wednesday voted to override President Barack Obama’s veto of legislation that would allow 9/11 victims’ families to sue the Saudi Arabian government over its alleged support for the terrorists who carried out the attacks.

The vote was 97 to 1.

The House is expected to vote later in the day and if successful, it will be the first time Congress has overridden a veto during the Obama administration.

“Overriding a presidential veto is something we don’t take lightly, but it was important in this case that the families of the victims of 9/11 be allowed to pursue justice, even if that pursuit causes some diplomatic discomforts,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who co-authored the bill with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a statement.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cast the lone vote to sustain the veto after discussing the issue with Obama in recent days.

“He’s always had the president’s back,” said Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson.

Both chambers passed the legislation without dissent earlier this year, but now several lawmakers are echoing the White House’s argument that the legislation could set a dangerous precedent, inviting other nations to respond by suing American diplomats, military personnel and other officials in foreign courts.

Critics of a bill are now focusing on how to scale back the measure once it becomes law.

“We see the writing on the wall: the override is going to occur,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who has been leading efforts to negotiate a narrower alternative.

Corker is one of several members who argue the bill, which would allow courts to waive claims to foreign sovereign immunity in situations involving acts of terrorism on U.S. soil, is so broad that it could expose the United States to retaliation in foreign courts.

He complained that if the bill becomes law “what you really do is you end up exporting your foreign policy to trial lawyers,” adding that U.S. personnel might find themselves dragged into lawsuits abroad over American drone use in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or even its support for Israel.

Members might be more open to scaling back the measure after observing the “blowback” once the legislation becomes law, Corker argued. He said he is working with Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Ben Cardin, D-Md. – who also announced his intention to support the override Wednesday — in the hopes that “during the lame duck, maybe there’s a way to be successful in tightening this up.”

One alternative lawmakers have discussed is limiting the measure to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, as a way of satisfying the demands of the 9/11 victims’ families without opening the United States to continuing diplomatic and legal problems.

The Saudi government has denied it had any ties to the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks and has lobbied fiercely against the bill. But victims’ families have pushed for the legislation so they can press their case in courts and lawmakers who support the measure argue if the Saudis did nothing wrong they have nothing to worry about.

In a letter Monday to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned that allowing the bill to become law risked “damaging our close and effective cooperation with other countries” and “could ultimately have a chilling effect on our own counter-terrorism efforts.”

Thornberry and Smith both circulated letters among members in the last few days, urging them to vote against overriding the veto.

CIA Director John O. Brennan also warned of the 9/11 bill’s “grave implications for the national security of the United States” in a statement Wednesday.

While White House staffers have reached out to certain members of Congress, Obama did not launch an all-out lobbying push to pull members away from this bill.

“I know of no counting or anything they’ve asked me to do on that,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Tuesday. Pelosi intends to vote to override Obama’s veto.

Bill supporters have not warmed to any of the alternative proposals critics are floating and Cornyn dismissed the idea Congress will revisit the legislation later this year.

“As far as I’m concerned this bill is a done deal,” Cornyn said. “Obviously any senator or group of senators can offer any additional legislation they want, and we’ll take it up in due course.”