Numerous members of Congress– Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)– submitted a quick concurring that “the TikTok ban does not survive First Amendment scrutiny.” They concurred with TikTok that the law is “illegitimate.”

Legislators’ “principle justification” for the restriction–“preventing covert content manipulation by the Chinese government”– masked a “desire” to manage TikTok material, they stated. Even more, it might be accomplished by a less-restrictive option, they stated, a position which TikTok has actually long argued for.

Chief Law Officer Merrick Garland safeguarded the Act, however, advising SCOTUS to stay laser-focused on the concern of whether a forced sale of TikTok that would apparently enable the app to continue running without affecting American totally free speech breaks the First Amendment. If the court concurs that the law makes it through rigorous examination, TikTok might still be dealing with an abrupt shutdown in January.

The Supreme Court has actually set up oral arguments to start on January 10. TikTok and content developers who individually took legal action against to obstruct the law have actually requested their arguments to be divided, so that the court can individually weigh “different perspectives” when choosing how to approach the First Amendment concern.

In its own quick, TikTok has actually asked SCOTUS to strike the parts of the law singling out TikTok or “at the very least” describe to Congress that “it needed to do far better work either tailoring the Act’s restrictions or justifying why the only viable remedy was to prohibit Petitioners from operating TikTok.”

That might not be essential if Trump dominates. Trump informed the court that TikTok was a crucial platform for his governmental project which he must be the one to make the call on whether TikTok need to stay in the United States– not the Supreme Court.

“As the incoming Chief Executive, President Trump has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions, and he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means,” Trump’s quick stated.