Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this is a really good question. One of the concepts we want to introduce into the new modification is discretionary decisions by nation-states. The original bill said you couldn't sue based on a discretionary decision--a planning activity, a strategic decision. Apparently, there is some evidence that lower-level Saudi officials or people in Saudi Arabia provided some money, helped people get passports, helped people do this, helped people do that. We don't want to be held liable if we have a rogue employee in a consulate somewhere. It has to be that the nation-state at the highest level of government--to be liable for the torturous act--knew or should have known. If we don't want to be guilty by association, you don't want to be held liable as an entire nation-state because you have one part of the government doing a function that was not approved by the government as a whole. All I can say is we are making strategic decisions today. I don't know how much money we have given to the Kurds and other allies in Syria fighting ISIL, but I can tell you some of these groups in the eyes of other people in the region are terrorists, and they have an agenda outside of fighting ISIL. I don't want to be liable because we helped them in the cause of fighting ISIL if they go and do something else to harm somebody else, some other nation, unless we knew about it, because it will stop our ability to have partners.…”