White House will take down Obama’s ‘We the People’ petition site on Tuesday

Impact

On Monday evening, the White House announced that it will be taking down the “We the People” petition site that was first launched by former President Barack Obama in 2011, the Associated Press reported.

However, officials noted that the site will be up and running again next year, at which time they also promised to address citizen concerns, according to the AP.

The site works by allowing any citizen to start a petition, which will hopefully get the White House’s attention. In order to merit a response, the petition must surpass the 100,000-signature threshold.

However, as the Associated Press noted, the Trump administration has yet to respond to any of the 17 petitions that have crossed that signature barrier. Perhaps that is because many of them are critical of the administration and Trump himself. According to The Hill, several of the petitions call for Trump to release his tax returns, put his assets in a blind trust, and there’s even one calling for him to resign.

The site, the White House Official told the AP, will be taken down at midnight on Tuesday and will be replaced with a brand new site sometime in January. All of the existing petitions will also be restored. According to the official, this move will somehow save American taxpayers $1.3 million annually.