"...on Thursday came news that
Apple and Google were restoring access to TikTok in their app stores in response to letters from Attorney General Bondi promising that they wouldn’t be prosecuted for violating the TikTok statute. (For background on that statute,
see this earlier post.) By all accounts, the Bondi letters simply followed the directives President Trump had spelled out in
his January 20 executive order—promising no prosecution and also providing the Department’s legal conclusion that supporting TikTok in app stores would not, in fact, violate the TikTok statute.
As I wrote three weeks ago, whatever else might be said about an Attorney General’s choice to not enforce a federal statute that the Supreme Court
just upheld against a constitutional challenge, putting into writing that companies like Apple and Google are not violating the statute when they transparently … are … is something else altogether. Don’t just take my word for it, though; as relevant here, the statute bars U.S. companies from:
In other words, when Apple and Google provide access to TikTok through their app stores, they are violating the unambiguous, plain text of the statute. There’s just no non-frivolous argument to the contrary. Thus, to assert that Apple and Google aren’t violating this provision is to assert that 2 + 2 = porcupine. It’s not a legal argument at all; it’s just a diktat.
In essence, then, the Attorney General of the United States has put her name to legal conclusions that (1) she was directed to reach by the President; and (2) are laughably wrong. It was one thing when Trump put it in an executive order. It’s something else when a Senate-confirmed Attorney General follows through—it is the epitome of politics over law from the federal officer who ought to be most committed to the latter. ..."
Two very different episodes on Thursday provide growing evidence of a Department of Justice that is showing less respect, by the day, for the rule of law.
www.stevevladeck.com
