TikTok sues Trump admin., says ban is unconstitutional and political

Enlarge / TikTok's US operations may soon be part of every cool teen's favorite code conglomerate, Microsoft. (credit: SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images)

TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, filed suit today in federal court arguing that President Donald Trump's efforts to ban the app or force a sale to a US firm are not grounded in facts but instead are part of an "anti-China political campaign."

An executive order curtailing TikTok's US operations "is not rooted in bona fide national security concerns," TikTok argues in its complaint (PDF). "Independent national security and information security experts have criticized the political nature of this executive order, and expressed doubt as to whether its stated national security objective is genuine," the company adds.

TikTok's complaint seeks to prevent the president and the Department of Commerce from "impermissively banning" the app, alleging that the authority under which the order was enacted (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA) was a "gross misappropriation" and "a pretext for furthering the President's broader campaign of anti-China rhetoric in the run-up to the US election."

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