The White House on Friday declined to respond to a petition to arrest Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The petition, created on March 13, earned over 100,000 signatures in 30 days -- the usual requirement to earn a response -- and called on the Obama administration to arrest Trump for inciting public violence. It cited the 1969 Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio as precedent.
In Brandenburg, the Supreme Court established a test that allowed the government to prosecute speech when designed to incite or produce “imminent lawless action.” Legal experts argued that using the case as the basis for a legal argument to prosecute Trump was dubious.
The White House said it was declining to comment on the request because it fell outside of the terms of participation for the petition platform on its site.
Those terms say that "to avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition."
The site's terms include an agreement to not create petitions that expressly urge the support or opposition of candidates for elected office.
While the White House declined to respond to the petition, President Barack Obama has condemned the violent scenes at Trump rallies across the country.
Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.
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