TikTok Inc.'s Federal Complaint Against Trump -- Now Filed...

Much as we said repeatedly over the last 30 days, Trump both lacks the authority to "ban" Tik Tok, and perhaps more importantly. . . cannot feasibly do so, given the distributed nature of global internet servers.

In any event, shortly here, I will have a link to the full federal complaint at law (as a 39 page PDF) -- but here is a bit:

. . .[T]he actions directed in the August 6 executive order are not supported by the emergency declared a year earlier in Executive Order 13873. . . .

It is revealing that the President’s order took no account of the national security review process involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS” or “the Committee”) that was still pending at the time of the executive order. Instead, the order was issued abruptly after the President had proclaimed in a campaign-style news conference that TikTok Inc. had “no rights” and that he would ban TikTok if Plaintiffs did not pay money to the U.S. Treasury to secure the U.S. government’s approval for any sale.

The President stated that he would use his IEEPA authority to force TikTok to “close down” unless it is acquired through “an appropriate deal” in which “the Treasury. . . of the United States gets a lot of money. . . .

Neither TikTok Inc. nor ByteDance provides TikTok user data to the Chinese government, and the Chinese government has never asked for data on TikTok users or to moderate TikTok content. Plaintiffs would reject any such request. . . .

The President’s demands for payments have no relationship to any conceivable national security concern and serve only to underscore that Defendants failed to provide Plaintiffs with the due process required by law. . . .

Now you know. The man is a crook -- and quite positively. . . the most inept crook on the planet. Onward, grinning.

नमस्ते