Donald Trump has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in an upcoming Supreme Court case in which the president-elect asks the court to delay enactment of a new law banning TikTok in the United States unless the Chinese do so . sell.
The new law will take effect on January 19, the day before Trump takes office, and must be in effect when it takes effect.
Newsweek on Monday sought an email with comments from Trump’s transition team.
The Supreme Court, to which Trump nominated three conservative members, may refuse his request to delay the introduction of the new law. This could set up the first major clash between Trump and the Supreme Court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority.
On December 18, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear social media platform TikTok’s challenge to a new law that will force its Chinese parent company to sell the popular social media site.
The new law will give parent company ByteDance months to sell TikTok, given Congress’ considerations about the Chinese government’s collection of information from U. S. users.
The Supreme Court is hearing the case on an expedited calendar, with oral arguments on January 10.
TikTok has asked for a postponement of the case. In his briefing, Trump strongly endorsed TikTok’s request.
Trump’s amicus brief, or friend of the court, is an expert opinion filed on behalf of one of the parties in a legal dispute.
Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, told Newsweek that the Supreme Court would likely decline to review Trump’s friend-of-the-court brief.
Gillers said that, under Supreme Court rules, if Trump’s brief is refused, he could ask the Justice Department to file its own brief to the court just two days later.
Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D. C. , wrote on the Substack blog on Dec. 30 that Trump’s intervention could damage the relationship between the presidency and the Supreme Court in the long run.
Vladeck objected to Trump’s brief to the Supreme Court, written through John Sauer, Trump’s nominee for attorney general.
Vladeck wrote that the court may take exception to Sauer’s “ridiculous puffery,” in which he calls Trump “powerful,” “commanding” and “resoundingly successful.”
Newsweek sought email comment from Sauer on Monday.
Law professor Stephen Vladeck wrote in Substack: “This kind of self-serving writing that is self-absorbed in government memoirs. . . It will have significant (and, in my view, significantly damaging) long-term implications for government-government relations. Court. “
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, told Newsweek: “Given TikTok’s legal and political arguments for remaining, I suspect the Court will continue to apply the law rather than rule on the merits in an accelerated manner. But the Court will more likely do so by granting TikTok’s request to avoid an expedited review than by taking a position on Trump’s political arguments.
Law professor Stephen Gillers told Newsweek: “If the court does not want to hear it now, they can reject your application. If this is the case, you can ask your Ministry of Justice to give its opinion two days later. I doubt the court will will refuse to listen to what the President has to say on this issue, before or after he takes office. “
The Supreme Court will hold oral arguments on January 10, which will most likely give an intelligent indication of where the justices stand on these issues.
The court would likely have until then whether to accept Trump’s brief.
Sean O’Driscoll is a senior crime and courts reporter for Ireland-based Newsweek. Its objective is to inform about US legislation. He has extensively covered human rights and extremism. Sean joined Newsweek in 2023 and previously worked for The Guardian. The New York Times, BBC, Vice and others from the Middle East. He specialized in human rights issues in the Persian Gulf and conducted a three-month investigation into labor rights violations for the New York Times. in the past founded in New York City for 10 years. He graduated from Dublin City University and is a New York qualified solicitor and Irish notary. You can contact Sean by emailing s. odriscoll@newsweek. com. Languages: English and French.