DOJ advises the Supreme Court to deny Trump’s appeal to postpone TikTok ban legislation.

On Friday night, the US Department of Justice urged the Supreme Court to deny President-elect Donald Trump’s plea for a postponement of a law that could prohibit the popular social media application TikTok or compel its sale by January 19.

Last week, Trump submitted a legal document contending that he should be granted time after assuming office on January 20 to seek a “political resolution” to the matter. The court will hear arguments in the case on January 10.

The law, enacted in April, mandates that TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, must sell off the platform’s US assets or encounter a prohibition. TikTok did not respond right away. The DOJ stated in its filing that Trump’s request could only be approved if ByteDance demonstrated it was likely to prevail on the merits, which the company has not accomplished. The DOJ mentioned that no one disputes that China “aims to undermine US interests by gathering sensitive information about Americans and participating in secret and harmful influence operations.”

The government claimed that “it is indisputable that (China’s) oversight of TikTok via ByteDance poses a significant risk to national security: TikTok’s gathering of extensive sensitive information on 170 million Americans and their connections makes it a potent instrument for spying.”

Trump attorney D John Sauer stated last week that the president-elect “humbly asks the Court to contemplate pausing the Act’s divestment deadline of January 19, 2025, while it evaluates the case’s merits, thereby allowing President Trump’s forthcoming administration the chance to seek

On Friday, TikTok called on the Supreme Court to prevent the law based on free-speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It indicated that Congress had not aimed to prohibit Chinese-owned apps such as Shein or Temu, implying “it focused on TikTok due to its social-media content, not its data.”