US Senate Passes Bill To Let 9/11 Victims To Sue Saudi Arabia
MEP: The U.S. Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed controversial legislation that would allow the families of September 11th victims to sue Saudi Arabia, bringing Congress closer to a showdown with the White House, which has threatened to veto the legislation.
“This bill is very near and dear to my heart as a New Yorker because it would allow the victims of 9/11 to pursue some small measure of justice,” New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said Tuesday. “[This is] another example of the [John] Cornyn-Schumer collaboration, which works pretty well around here.”
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) now moves to the House of Representatives.
“When you lose someone to such evil…the temptation is to curse the darkness,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, one of a group of bipartisan lawmakers pushing the legislation said during a press conference on Tuesday. “These families have lit a candle…not only to bring justice to themselves but to send a loud message to foreign governments. If you help create terrorism on American soil, you will be brought to justice.”
The Saudis, who deny responsibility for the 2001 attacks, strongly object to the bill. They had said they might sell up to $750 billion in U.S. securities and other American assets in retaliation if it became law.
“We said that a law like this is going to cause investor confidence to shrink. And so not just for Saudi Arabia, but for everybody,” Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said earlier this month in a statement.
The Senate’s passage of the bill, which will now be taken up in the House, is another sign of escalating tensions in a relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia that once received little scrutiny from lawmakers.
President Barack Obama said he will veto the bill, but Schumer is “confident” he’d be overruled.
If it became law the legislation would allow victims’ families to sue any member of the government of Saudi Arabia thought to have played a role in any element of the attack.
The Senate bill carves out an exception to the law if foreign countries are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill American citizens within the United States. If the bill were to pass both houses and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 suits.
The bill has already gained support from the US House of Representatives, where it will head to next although Speaker Paul Ryan has voiced skepticism.
“I think we need to look at it,” Ryan told reporters last month. “I think we need to review it to make sure we are not making mistakes with our allies and we’re not catching people in this that shouldn’t be caught up in this.”
