State Dept prematurely announces Trump departure
US State Department's website prematurely announced that President Trump had left office Monday.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US State Department s website prematurely announced that President Donald Trump had left office Monday, sending social media into a tailspin on what happened.
"Donald J. Trump s term ended 2021-01-11 19:49:00," Trump s official biography page said briefly on Monday before being taken down, with internet users instead seeing a message that there was a technical error.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a question on whether the incident was the result of hacking or a glitch.
But it appeared clear that Trump -- who remains president on the White House website -- had not found an uncharacteristically subtle way to quit through a hard-to-find page.
President-elect Joe Biden is due to be sworn in on January 20 at noon (1700 GMT) after defeating Trump in the November 3 election.
Lawmakers are calling on Trump to resign, his cabinet to remove him or for a second impeachment after he encouraged a mob that violently trashed a session of Congress formally certifying Biden s win.
