Fake: Trump’s Term Ended on January 11th
The Claim
President Donald Trump’s presidential term ended January 11th, 2021, at 7 PM.
News posted on
Emerging story
On January 11th an image began circulating on Twitter showing a screenshot of the biography page of Donald J. Trump on the U.S. Department of State Website. At the bottom of the page, it reads "Donald J. Trump's term ended on 2021-01-11 19:39:54."
The same message appeared on the bottom of Vice President Michael R. Pence’s biography page five minutes later.
As the image quickly spread around social media, many people were confused, wondering whether or not President Trump had just been removed from office.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found this claim to be fake. It turns out that the image was legitimate, as many people who saw the image checked the Department of State’s website and verified this.
According to BuzzFeed News and confirmed by CNN, “A disgruntled employee at the State Department changed the biographies of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to say their term was coming to an end on Monday.” This information was provided to BuzzFeed by “two current-serving diplomats with knowledge of the situation.”
After this edit was realized, both Trump’s and Pence’s biography pages were removed and replaced with a 404 error reading, “We’re sorry, this site is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again in a few moments.”
One of BuzzFeed’s sources said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ordered an internal investigation into the matter. It turns out that President Donald J. Trump’s term has not ended prematurely, rather this was just an outburst by a disgruntled State Department employee.
