The Trump administration lost an appeal of a federal judge’s injunction that stopped the federal government’s ban of WeChat, a social messaging app owned by the Chinese company Tencent.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order saying the Trump administration had “not demonstrated that they will suffer an imminent, irreparable injury” while the litigation matures.
The Department of Commerce sought to ban all U.S. transactions with WeChat in September, but federal Judge Laurel Beeler granted a nationwide injunction against President Trump’s order authorizing the ban.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice appealed the injunction from Judge Beeler to the 9th Circuit, where the Trump administration suffered a loss on Tuesday.
In a statement last month explaining the WeChat ban pursuant to Mr. Trump’s executive orders, the Commerce Department said WeChat collects “vast swaths of data from users,” including location data and search history, and is “an active participant in China’s civil-military fusion and is subject to mandatory cooperation with the intelligence services of the [Chinese Communist Party].”
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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