State Department Website Says Trump’s Term Ended January 11
It’s not yet clear whether an employee went rogue, or the State Department website was hacked, or something is going on behind the scenes, but on Monday afternoon, the U.S. State Department’s biography of President Donald J. Trump declared that his term had officially ended on January 11th, 2021.
A screenshot below shows the very brief biography of President Donald Trump, according to the U.S. State Department.
And by ‘brief,’ we mean extremely brief — the entirety of the biography, at this time, reads as follows:
“Donald J. Trump’s term ended on 2021-01-11 19:22:18.”
However, the headline above still identifies Trump’s Presidential term as “JANUARY 20, 2017 – PRESENT.”
An archived copy of the bio can be seen here, in the event that the official site is updated or corrected.
Though Congress has been discussing various possibilities for removing Trump from office after a mob went from listening to his speech to attacking the U.S. Capitol building, at this stage proposed schedules for voting on 25th Amendment resolutions and impeachment articles are still being discussed, with these discussions scheduled, respectively, for Tuesday January 12, and Wednesday January 13.
U.S. House Schedule (via @LeaderHoyer):
Tuesday, January 12th – 25th Amendment resolution debate & vote
Wednesday, January 13th – Impeachment resolution debate & vote
Watch all U.S. House proceedings LIVE on C-SPAN https://t.co/jBs6cQm0vx pic.twitter.com/GlGZALYUyJ
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 11, 2021
If the site was hacked or changed by an employee without authorization, there has been no official confirmation at this time. However, the date is not in a typical U.S. format, which would have used a month/date/year organization, and the United States government has recently suffered a major network hack presumed to be by foreign agents and to have left access open, so an outside actor invading the site seems likely.
UPDATE
Mike Pence’s biography was also affected, and Buzzfeed reporter Christopher Miller says that contacts at the State Department have informed him a “disgruntled staffer” was behind the changes.
Guessing the State Dept is getting some questions about its website right about now. It’s POTUS and VPOTUS bio pages say President Trump’s term & @VP Pence’s term end today. pic.twitter.com/o3LgdnejeK
— Kris Van Cleave (@krisvancleave) January 11, 2021