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by foobarbecue 509 days ago
Except it doesn't sound like he's satisfied any of the criteria, unless he's promising to buy it himself:

(A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application; (B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such application; and (C) there are in place the relevant binding legal agree- ments to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension

2 comments

Those are criteria the President has to certify are the case, not criteria that have to be the case.

Zero clue how that would play out in the courts, but it wouldn't resolve in anything resembling a timely manner.

His administration will lie, because TikTok has made it clear they will not divest in order to stay in the USA.

But so what? His administration, and he himself, lied about a bunch of stuff during his previous term, and what happened? Nothing. Never tried, never convicted (he was impeached, but so what?)

We do not have a mechanism for dealing with a president or administration that is willing to just lie. Even if the SCOTUS were to determine that the administration did in fact lie about certifying those things, so what? Nothing will happen.

> We do not have a mechanism for dealing with a president or administration that is willing to just lie

Of course we do. We’ll just fine Apple, Google and Oracle tens of billions of dollars if they don’t cut ties with Bytedance. The law can be patient.

I advocated for this bill. My personal guess is the tech companies bend at the knee and then pay for a new train system in New York or whatever.

(A) is intentionally vague and deferential. The possibility of a Trump Presidency was in everyone’s mind in drafting; he’s not a guy you tell what to do, he’s a guy you give discretion to with an opportunity to blame unsatisfactorily deferential third parties.