“Among other things, it would allow a foreign government to illicitly interfere with our political system and political discourse, including our elections,” prosecutors wrote. The filing added, “if, for example, the Chinese government were to determine that the outcome of a particular American election as sufficiently important to Chinese interests.”
“Allowing the Chinese government to remain poised to use TikTok to maximum effectiveness at a moment of extreme importance presents an unacceptable threat to national security,” prosecutors wrote.
The filing is in response to a federal lawsuit TikTok brought against the US government in May in an attempt to block a law that could force a nationwide ban of the app. That law, which President Joe Biden signed in April, says that TikTok must find a new owner by mid-January 2025 or it will be banned from the United States entirely.
