Petition to release Donald Trump’s tax returns hits threshold; White House response now required

| 1:54 pm EST January 21, 2017
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This should be a fun official response to read. Just moments after Donald Trump was sworn in, the American public swung into action with regard to the White House petition feature which was established by President Obama. Many expected the Trump administration to immediately disable the feature, but when that didn’t happen, the very first petition was predictably related to Trump’s tax returns. Less than a day later, it’s already received enough signatures to require a White House response.

To be clear, there’s nothing under the law that says Donald Trump and his administration have to respond to this petition or even keep the petition on the White House website. But by leaving the system in place, along with the clear verbiage which states that petitions receiving 100,000 signatures within their first thirty days will “Get an official update from the White House,” it means Trump and his team are now trapped in a no-win situation.

This petition has received 146,013 signatures already. So if the White House fails to respond, it’s a controversy. And any response it offers to the petition will end up being controversial as well, as Trump is obviously not going to release his tax returns. Feel free to pile on by signing the petition.