President Trump has requested the U.S. Supreme Court to pause the implementation of a law that would ban TikTok.

In a 25-page amicus brief, D. John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer and his pick for U.S. solicitor general, wrote that Trump should have time after he takes office to reach a “negotiated resolution.”

“President Trump takes no position on the merits of the dispute. Instead, he urges the Court to stay the
statute’s effective date to allow his incoming Administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns,” the brief states.

“There is ample justification for the Court to stay the January 19 deadline—by which divestment for
ByteDance must occur, or else TikTok will face an effective shut-down in the United States—while it considers the merits of the case,” it continues.

Per Reuters:

The law would require TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban. The U.S. Congress voted in April to ban it unless ByteDance sells the app by Jan. 19.

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TikTok, which has over 170 million U.S. users, and its parent have sought to have the law struck down. But if the court does not rule in their favor and no divestment occurs, the app could be effectively banned in the United States on Jan. 19, one day before Trump takes office.

Trump’s support for TikTok is a reversal from 2020, when he tried to block the app in the United States and force its sale to American companies because of its Chinese ownership.

It also shows the significant effort by the company to forge inroads with Trump and his team during the presidential campaign.

“Due to the Act’s deadline for divestment and the timing of the D.C. Circuit’s decision, this Court now faces the prospect of deciding extremely difficult questions on exactly such a ‘highly expedited basis.’ Staying this deadline would provide breathing space for the Court to consider the questions on a more measured schedule, and it would provide President Trump’s incoming Administration an opportunity to pursue a negotiated resolution of the conflict,” the brief states.

“Second, three features of the Act raise concerns about possible legislative encroachment on prerogatives of the Executive Branch under Article II. First, the Act dictates that the President must make a particular national-security determination as to TikTok alone, while granting the President a greater ‘degree of discretion and freedom from statutory restriction’ as to all other social-media platforms,” it continues.

ABC News reports:

In Trump’s amicus brief, Sauer raised the idea of social media censorship, invoking Brazil’s recent month-long ban of social media platform X, the treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story and government efforts to stamp out COVID-19 misinformation as incidents that should give the justices pause.

“This Court should be deeply concerned about setting a precedent that could create a slippery slope toward global government censorship of social media speech,” Sauer wrote in the filing. “The power of a Western government to ban an entire social-media platform with more than 100 million users, at the very least, should be considered and exercised with the most extreme care—not reviewed on a ‘highly expedited basis.’”

While Sauer acknowledged that TikTok may pose national security risks while it remains under ByteDance’s control, he also urges the justices to be skeptical of national security officials, whom, he said, “have repeatedly procured social-media censorship of disfavored content and viewpoints through a combination of pressure, coercion, and deception.”

“There is a jarring parallel between the D.C. Circuit’s near-plenary deference to national security officials calling for social-media censorship, and the recent, well-documented history of federal officials’ extensive involvement in social-media censorship efforts directed at the speech of tens of millions Americans,” Sauer wrote.

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Read the 25-page amicus brief HERE.

 

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