A bizarre situation unfolded on Monday when a webpage on Mike Pompeo's State Department claimed that President Donald Trump's term as president would end on January 11th.
On a biography page for Trump, the State Department noted that his term began on January 20th, 2017. But it also said, "Trump's term ended on 2021-01-11.
The website listed a specific time currently reading as 7:40 p.m. eastern. But a screen capture by Laura Rozen showed the time as 7:49 p.m. And a capture of the page by Archive.org showed it at 7:22.
Um, @SecPompeo, what's going on?https://t.co/3pnV2Nfw09 pic.twitter.com/gWg7olDrK8
— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) January 11, 2021
Trump is scheduled to remain in office until January 20th. If his term were to end today, it would either he has resigned from office as Trump would technically remain president while if Mike Pence and his cabinet removed Trump's power by invoking the 25th Amendment.
A different page showed Pence's term also ending today.
Also would draw your attention to... pic.twitter.com/NCl16oUnPA
— Kevin D. Grüssing (pronounced Grew-Sing) (@KevDGrussing) January 11, 2021
BuzzFeed News reports it was the work of a "disgruntled staffer."
UPDATE: Sources tell @BuzzFeedNews a "disgruntled staffer" is behind the State Department site's change of Trump an… https://t.co/TggeLJegVe— Christopher Miller (@Christopher Miller)1610396216.0
The webpage sparked confusion online. Many people speculated that the site had been hacked or the page was suffering from a glitch.
I'm sure this is somehow incorrect, or a mistake, or something, but this is bizarre: State Department website says:… https://t.co/58P87iYdiS— Ricardo Lopez (@Ricardo Lopez)1610395812.0
it's unclear what's going on but a page on the State Department's website currently says Trump's tenure as presiden… https://t.co/XgXO2ROCBj— John Hudson (@John Hudson)1610395334.0
The timer on the State Department website appears to be incrementing, suggesting that it is dynamically generated a… https://t.co/xnaK7sVwoi— Philip Bump (@Philip Bump)1610395747.0
I'd put a whole lot of money on this being either a hack or a glitch (and not a secret tip-off about invocation of… https://t.co/p6WQqWzD1V— Steve Vladeck (@Steve Vladeck)1610395624.0
Weird. But this is most likely either a glitch or some kind of defacement of the State Department page. https://t.co/shYIu7dNLP— Susan Hennessey (@Susan Hennessey)1610395812.0
