“Finally, we have an example of the US Congress putting US citizens above the relationship with the Saudi government,” says CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin in response to the vote by Congress to allow Americans to sue Saudi Arabia over the 9/11 attacks, overriding President Obama’s veto of the bill. The legislation would allow courts to waive claim of foreign sovereign immunity after an act of terrorism occurs within US borders. “If innocent families [of drone attacks] were able to take the US to court instead of seeing joining ISIS or al-Qaeda as their only resort, that would be a very positive thing.” Benjamin is author of the book Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZĂLEZ: We turn now to Wednesday’s decisive vote by Congress to allow Americans to sue Saudi Arabia over the 9/11 attacks, overriding President Obama’s veto of the bill. It’s the first time during Obama’s presidency that his veto has been overridden by Congress. The Senate rejected the veto 97 to 1, while the House rejected it 348 to 77. This means the, quote, Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act now becomes law. This legislation would allow courts to waive claim of foreign sovereignty immunity after an act of terrorism occurs within US borders. The bill had passed both the House and the Senate earlier this year, but President Obama had vetoed it earlier this month. This is the president speaking to CNN on Wednesday.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: What this legislation did was it said if a private citizen believes that, having been victimized by terrorism, that another country didn’t do enough to stop one of its citizens, for example, in engaging in terrorism, then they can file a personal lawsuit, a private lawsuit in court. And the problem with that is that if we eliminate this notion of sovereign immunity, then our men and women in uniform around the world could potentially start seeing ourselves subject to…