President Trump, Pam Bondi sued over sale of TikTok assets
Source: NPR
Updated March 5, 2026 12:31 PM ET
A new organization launched to fight public corruption is suing President Trump and his attorney general, accusing them of flouting the law when they blessed the sale of TikTok's U.S. assets to White House allies.
The case, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., accuses the Trump administration of ignoring legislation designed to stop the spread of Chinese propaganda — and instead helping to broker a partial sale to businessmen close to Trump.
"By flaunting the law so publicly, I think the president is trying to send a message that he is quite literally beyond the reach of the courts, beyond the reach of Congress, beyond the reach of the rule of law," said Brendan Ballou, chief executive at The Public Integrity Project, the new nonpartisan firm. "And we want to make sure that he isn't."
The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/05/g-s1-112605/tiktok-deal-lawsuit-trump-bondi
Link to SUIT (PDF) - https://static1.squarespace.com/static/69375471a1fcf3781452cbc0/t/69a98d8c3eb55c38d1546bb5/1772719501042/TikTok+Petition.3.5.26-compressed.pdf
For a whole year while this saga was going on, the original law had something like an option for a 75 day extension for completely a transfer to a U.S. entity before the ban would go into effect. Lawsuits were filed that went all the way to the SCOTUS where even they unanimously ruled that the law was sound. Yet that was completely ignored by having extension after extension after extension until Ellison, et al., swooped in and finalized it.
And the media just shrugged.