White House Restores, Continues to Ignore ‘We the People’ Petition Site

A Petition For Trump to Release his Tax Returns Has 1,112,678 Signatures

The White House has restored the “We the People” petitions website that the Trump administration continues to ignore.

The popular website was launched September 22, 2011 under President Barack Obama’s administration. It requires users to register for a free whitehouse.gov account in order to create a petition, and users who wish to sign to provide and verify their email address.

Once a petition reached the required threshold within an allotted time frame, the White House offered typically offered an official response—though that was no longer the case once Donald Trump assumed the presidency.

The website currently advises that should a petition reach 100,000 signatures in 30 days, an official response will be provided—though Donald Trump’s White House did not respond to the petitions which did just that (and much more.)

One petition, entitled “Immediately release Donald Trump’s full tax returns, with all information needed to verify emoluments clause compliance,” currently has 1,112,678 signatures. It needed to reach 100,000 on February 19, 2017. As NCRM reported at the time, the petition had reached the required threshold just days after Donald Trump’s inauguration.

While no formal response was ever given, Kellyanne Conway did offer a response to ABC News last year when confronted with the petition’s existence. “The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns,” she said. “We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care, they voted for him.”

Another petition, “Divest or put in a blind trust all of the President’s business and financial assets,” currently has 357,206 signatures, and needed to reach 100,000 signatures on February 19, 2017.

A third petition, again critical of the president, called on Donald Trump to resign. It needed 100,000 signatures on February 19, 2017 to receive a response, and currently has 138,678.

As the Washington Post reported, “a note posted to the site when it was taken down said it was undergoing maintenance and that when it was put back up, the White House would preserve all of its petitions and begin responding.”

The White House did not respond to the outlet’s multiple requests for comment.