According to CNN, an angry State Department employee seems to have been behind the changes to the department website that states that President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence’s terms were over.
A State Department source says that the early stages of an investigation suggest the changes appear to have been made by a disgruntled staffer but is unclear who it was or what caused their anger.
The department’s biography page for the President displayed a single line on Monday afternoon.
“Donald J. Trump’s term ended on 2021-01-11 19:40:07.”
The page for Pence showed a similar message: “Michael R. Pence’s term ended on 2021-01-11 19:45:15.”
The edited pages were later taken down and directed website visitors to an error page. It is still unclear how long the bizarre pages were up.
Those changes to Trump and Pence’s biographies — which went viral on social media — were made less than a week after violent rioters stormed the US Capitol, incited by the President and his allies.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the riot in a series of tweets last week, however, he did not link them to Trump. US diplomats called on Pompeo to denounce Trump’s role in the violent insurrection attempt in a dissent cable last week.
“It is critical that we communicate to the world that in our system, no one — not even the President — is above the law or immune from public criticism,” the memo said.
The President and vice president will leave office on January 20.