In a landmark 97-1 vote, the United States Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to override Barack Obama’s veto of a bill allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.
Only Obama’s ally Nevada Democrat Harry Reid voted against the bill.
This is a severe blow to Obama, who lobbied hard against the bill, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. This is a first rebuke to Obama in his eight years of presidency.
Obama vetoed the legislation on Friday because he said the bill would infringe on the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. It was the 12th veto of his presidency and, until now, none have been overridden even after Republicans’ longstanding control of the Congress.
The White House argued the 9/11 bill would undermine the principle of sovereign immunity and open up the United States itself to lawsuits.
In a letter to Republican and Democratic Senate leaders, Obama had said: ‘I strongly believe that enacting JASTA into law would be detrimental to US national interests.’
Obama warned of ‘devastating’ consequences for the Pentagon, service members, diplomats and the intelligence services.
It would ‘neither protect Americans from terrorist attacks, nor improve the effectiveness of our response to such attacks’, he warned.
Families of 9/11 victims have campaigned for the law -- convinced that the Saudi government had a hand in the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, but no link to the government has been proven. The Saudi government denies any links to the plotters.
Declassified documents showed US intelligence had multiple suspicions about links between the Saudi government and the attackers.
