US State Department prematurely announces Trump departure

This illustration picture shows a screen grab of the US State Department saying Donald Trump’s presidency ends on 2021-01-11 displayed on a smartphone with the official White House website in the background in Arlington, Virginia on January 11, 2021. The US State Department’s website prematurely announced that President Donald Trump had left office, sending social media into a tailspin on what happened. Photo by Olivier DOULIERY / AFP

WASHINGTON — 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.