Congress overrides President Obama's veto on 9/11 bill

Congress Votes to Override Obama Veto on 9/11 Victims Bill

WASHINGTON — An overwhelming majority in Congress on Wednesday overturned President Obama’s veto of legislation that would allow families of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot, the first successful override vote of his presidency.

The 9/11 override is a remarkable yet complicated bipartisan rebuttal, even as some its supporters conceded that they did not fully support the legislation they had just voted for. Mr. Obama and his allies vowed to find a way to tweak the legislation later.

In recent days, Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all wrote letters to Congress warning of the dangers of overriding the veto.

The law “could be devastating to the Department of Defense and its service members,” Mr. Obama wrote, “and there is no doubt that the consequences could be equally significant for our foreign affairs and intelligence communities.” The White House and some lawmakers were already plotting how they could weaken the law in the near future.
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From a practical standpoint, this seems to be a feel-good measure without any real teeth. Actually suing the government of Saudi Arabia would have a whole host of logistical issues. It would be difficult to bring such a suit in an international court because sovereign immunity is part of international customary law. It would be difficult to bring such a suit in a US court because the court would likely lack jurisdiction since it would be against a foreign government.

However, from a diplomatic standpoint, this has the potential to damage US interests abroad--the exact scope of which will remain to be seen (it may be minimal or it may be huge).

How many vetoes has Obama actually issued?

12. This is the first to be overridden.

http://www.senate.gov/reference/Legislation/Vetoes/vetoCounts.htm

And here's the veto message he included: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/23/veto-message-president-s2040

The veto is irrelevant. Obama opposed the bill, and his word determines how the government will operate. Anyone who tries to sue Saudi Arabia under this unconstitutional law will find themselves in jail for numerous violations of the Internal Revenue Code.

Just how are we supposed to collect up on this money from SA if it passes anyway?

Exactly. I assume we're going to send over some guys to break some legs.

Saudi Arabia keeps a fortune in US banks. A judge would simply transfer some of the money to the plaintiffs' accounts, minus legal fees.

This certainly won't backfire or cause some sort of problem later on.

There are plenty of tangible Saudi assets in the United States, not to mention things like Saudi government controlled stock in American companies, all of which could be forcibly sold to satisfy a judgment. I'd imagine liens against oil sales could work as well.

Of all the problems with this legislation, collecting isn't one of them. Any court that allowed things to reach a judgment would have tools to collect on that judgment absent intervention by higher courts or the executive branch.

Since the Saudi's reject any involvement in 9/11 I don't see how they would willingly cough up any money for lawsuits. And of course the argument can be turned against the US - can the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties (or their families) of American "collateral damage" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc. sue the US government for their losses? Doubt the US would entertain the notion.

Well, well. We've found something that unites Congress across partisan lines: empty pandering to 9/11 families. Obama tries to be the adult, to no avail.

I thought almost everyone here wanted to zing Saudi Arabia in some way

Sure, but it opens up the USA to getting zinged by other countries in return.

I honestly didn't understand why this bill was a terrible idea until I read Obama's explanation for vetoing it. The precedent it would set could be disastrous.

This isn't zinging, it's an empty gesture that's probably going to hurt us more than we could ever hurt them. This isn't going to be something that only we can do, other countries will want to do the same once we set a precedent. We've done a lot of shit that people don't like.

A lot of shit.

Doesn't that assume that the US is subject to the same rules and standards of other nations?

It isn't.

Okay, I'll humour you.

Why wouldn't the US be subject to the same rule in this case, Dayton?

The U.S. by virtue of being the worlds indispensable nation has super sovereignty

I had to check twice to make sure this wasn't a @NotDayton post.

When trump gets in he's going to build a huuuuuge wall around Saudi Arabia and make them pay for it.

How does that stop any country from seizing American assets residing on it's soil to repay alleged "damages?"

I'm sure the US can intimidate some countries into backing down, but not all of them.

Exactly. Do we REALLY want countries suing us for every grievance, real or imagined, that they can conjure up for the past 50+ years?

I imagine the poor punctuation here is due to typing with one hand, the other being wrapped around his dick.

Just like Dayton thinks he isn't subject to the same rules and standards as the rest of us.

It makes perfect sense.

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause." Eric Hoffer.

It should be named the Giuliani act.

Let's see here... Japan and Germany seizing US military bases comes to mind. Mind you, both those countries like the US well enough, despite the US battering them around into submission in WWII...

So upon further digging there was already an exception to sovereign immunity when it can be proved the sovereign materially supported terrorism. In other words, the 9/11 victims already could have sued Saudi Arabia.

So this particular provision of the bill is redundant. And I'm once again not surprised that Congress accomplished literally nothing new.