Thread by @SethAbramson

BREAKING NEWS: Official U.S. State Department Website Inexplicably Says Donald Trump's Presidency "Ended" at 7:49 PM Tonight (January 11); No Explanation Yet for Bizarre Website Edit

(PS) FWIW, I accessed the site at 3:02 PM ET, so the time in the screenshot above (7:49 PM) is not—as some are saying—UTC time. There may well be a computer glitch here, I don't know. Other screenshots have shown other times. But all are today, and State has not explained it yet.

(PS2) Regardless of time-stamp, it's not clear why the State Department would edit this presidency's official biography in *any* way that would say it ended on January 11—let alone do so on a day the House tried to get the Vice President to become Acting President. It is bizarre.

(PS3) It's possible the time periodically updates—and last updated at 19:49PM UTC (2:49PM ET), i.e. about 20 minutes ago.

But it's not clear why State erased the biography of this presidency at *all*, replacing it with a notice of the presidency ending on *this* day of all days!

(PS4) The date format—year first—certainly supports this being UTC time (again, it wouldn't be "live" UTC time, but a periodically updated UTC time).

What I still haven't heard is why State would let someone change the page in this way *on a day Pence could become acting POTUS*.

(UPDATE) This was posted 10 minutes ago. It may mean something or may not, so please be *cautious* about reading *anything* into this. Posted just FYI.

(UPDATE2) We now find a similar notation for Vice President Mike Pence's official biography. This is either a hack (less likely), the most ill-timed website update in the history of U.S. government (*very* likely), or an indication of a change of president (vanishingly unlikely).

(UPDATE3) My pinned tweet is now trending on Twitter, which I'm excited about *only* because it increases the odds that a reporter assigned to the State Department will find out what the heck is going on over there and let the rest of us know. Almost certainly nothing, but still.

(UPDATE4) I have said repeatedly that I think this is just a *historically* ill-timed website update.

Do *not* attribute to me any other claim. Others may see more in this, but I do not.

(BREAKING NEWS and UPDATE5) The entire State Department website is now down.

(BREAKING NEWS and UPDATE6) BUZZFEED NEWS now has a statement from Trump officials on this bizarre event:

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1348725601335717889?s=20

(UPDATE7) Full BUZZFEED NEWS story on this now, see below: buzzfeednews.com/article/christ…

(UPDATE8) To be clear, "disgruntled employee" is placeholder nonsense, as it's obvious the State Department only *just* discovered this and took its site offline. There's no way they already looked into exactly how this happened. This is just their first draft of a real response.

(UPDATE9) THE DAILY BEAST has now picked up the story:

https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1348726719012855808?s=19

(NOTE) Amazing how a story goes through a whole lifespan in one hour. An hour ago, a DoS website change was noted, and people asked for more info. Now, the usual tut-tutting folks are doing their anti-social media thing: falsely saying people thought this was a secret signal. No.

(NOTE2) If you follow this thread, you see how most high-traffic Twitter accounts try to handle sensitive developments. They provide evidence, gather evidence, ask questions, crowdsource possible explanations, stay calm, and post major-media updates ASAP.

Then they get attacked.

(NOTE3) This story was *so* "real" that there is now an active State Department investigation into whether a federal crime was committed by a government employee. Major media *missed* the story completely until it saw it on social media, so now it cynically attacks social media.

(UPDATE10) This analysis seems to support my initial hunch that this was just a computer glitch. Of course, what it also means is that the State Department is falsely accusing a government employee of a federal crime just to have something to say to media.

https://twitter.com/tarah/status/1348727605617258496?s=19