U.S. Lawyer Common Pam Bondi despatched letters to 10 U.S. tech corporations, together with Google and Apple, earlier this yr, making clear that they wouldn’t be prosecuted for ignoring a TikTok ban accepted by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
The letters, launched Thursday following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Google shareholder Anthony Tan, present that Bondi instructed the businesses integral to TikTok’s U.S. operations that Trump believed the abrupt shutdown of the app would “intrude with the execution of [his] constitutional duties to maintain nationwide safety and international affairs.”
Due to this fact, Bondi stated, these corporations “could proceed to offer companies to TikTok as contemplated … with out violating the Act, and with out incurring any authorized legal responsibility.”
Bondi added that the division would protect the businesses from anybody else attempting to penalize them for violating the TikTok divest-or-ban legislation, together with by “submitting amicus briefs, statements of curiosity or intervening in litigation.”
The New York Instances additionally obtained some of Bondi’s letters following its personal FOIA lawsuit for the correspondence.
The opposite eight corporations who acquired letters by Bondi embrace: Amazon, Microsoft, Akamai Applied sciences, Digital Realty Belief, Fastly, T-Cell, Oracle and LG Electronics USA.
Final yr, former President Joe Biden signed a bundle of international help payments into legislation, together with a provision to drive ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese language dad or mum firm, to promote its stake within the platform or threat being banned from U.S. app shops over nationwide safety considerations, prompting the platform to go darkish briefly.
Following his inauguration in January, Trump instantly signed an executive order directing the DOJ to not implement the legislation, giving TikTok 75 days to discover a U.S. purchaser. The president has since prolonged that deadline thrice.
Following the passage of the legislation, Google and Apple briefly eliminated TikTok from their app shops. Reports at the time attributed the platform’s return to app shops to Bondi assuaging their considerations. However the letters had not been made public on the time.
In the meantime, Trump, who final month gave TikTok one other 90-day extension to adjust to the legislation, instructed Fox Enterprise’ Maria Bartiromo he’s making progress on a possible sale, adding that he expects to announce a buyer soon as considerations about its long-term future within the U.S. stay.
The sale would nonetheless require Beijing’s approval, however Trump sounded assured China wouldn’t block it.
“I believe President Xi [Jinping] will most likely do it,” Trump instructed Bartiromo.