A disgruntled State Department official has changed the biographies of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to say their term ends Monday – nine days before President-elect Joe Biden is to be sworn in – two current serving diplomats. with knowledge of the situation told BuzzFeed News.
The changes to the State Department’s website come days after Trump incited a deadly uprising at the U.S. Capitol, prompting Democrats to begin the process of accusing him a second time, and leading to has that Pence should appeal to the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office. .
The president’s biography has been changed: ‘Donald J. Trump’s term ends on 2021-01-11 19:49:00’, while the vice president’s biography has been edited until ‘Michael’ Pence’s term ends on 2021-01-11 19:44:22. ”The timestamp on Trump’s page changed several times, before both pages were removed at about 15:50 and replaced with text 404: “Sorry, this site is experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again in a few moments.”
One of the diplomats said Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo had ordered an internal investigation into the matter, which began with interns and employees leaving the State Department this week and thereafter before the transition to the Biden government.
Both diplomats said an investigation into the matter could be a challenge, given how many people have administrative access to the content management system used for the Department of State’s official website.
It is a ‘closed system’ that is ‘almost impossible to hack’, said one of the diplomats.
“This is 100% not a hack,” they said.
In recent days, dozens of U.S. diplomats in their careers have signed two unprecedented cables condemning Trump for inciting the deadly uprising on the Capitol last week, Foreign Policy magazine and other stores reported.
The outlets said the second cable with the strongest words reprimanded Pompeo for “not issuing a statement unequivocally acknowledging that President Biden won the 2020 election” and protesting against the “president’s incitement of rebellious violence against the United States’.
More than 100 State Department employees signed the cable, including three who told BuzzFeed News that they would prefer even stronger language in it.
Their frustration, they said, stems in part from Pompeo’s poor statement, published in a series of tweets On Wednesday, the storming of the Capitol was called “unacceptable,” but did not include any mention of Trump.
The White House referred BuzzFeed News to the State Department, which did not immediately provide one.
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