The federal government appealed a judge’s ruling on Thursday that prevented the Trump administration from imposing a ban on the Chinese-owned app TikTok over national security concerns.
The New York Times reports that on Thursday the federal government appealed a recent ruling that prevented the Trump administration from banning the Chinese-owned app TikTok due to national security concerns. In a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Justice Department claim that a preliminary injunction issued last month by Judge Carl Nichols in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia should be lifted.
The decisions to appeal the injunction has reportedly further increased tensions between the Trump administration and TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance. The Trump administration moved to ban TikTok over national security concerns and insisted that the app’s U.S. operations be sold to an American firm.
ByteDance has since negotiated a deal to create a new entity called TikTok Global in which two American firms, Oracle and Walmart, would own a 20 percent stake but the deal has yet to be approved and many reports claimed that the deal would not satisfy the Trump administrations concerns over national security.
Breitbart News reported last month that despite the preliminary approval of a partnership between the Chinese-owned app TikTok and U.S. firms Oracle and Walmart by President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr is not yet convinced that the partnership is sufficient to protect the data of U.S. citizens from the Chinese government.
A spokeswoman for Barr told Fox Business that Barr “is still in the fact-gathering stage and has not reached a final decision or made a final recommendation to the president.” Barr’s concern has reportedly delayed the administration’s approval despite President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reportedly being prepared to sign off on the deal. Mnuchin also chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. which has to approve any foreign transaction.
Read more about the TikTok deal at Breitbart News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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