Daily TribuneSites linked to the departments of defense, commerce, energy, transportation, labor as well the Central Intelligence Agency and the Supreme Court were inaccessible
US government sites were unavailable amid the Trump administration's controversial drive to shrink the government.
Mandel NGAN / AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Hundreds of United States government websites were offline on Monday, an Agence France-Presse review showed.
From a list of nearly 1,400 federal sites provided by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, more than 350 were unavailable on Monday afternoon, including that of the humanitarian agency USAID which President Donald Trump’s administration is shutting down.
The inaccessible sites were linked to the departments of defense, commerce, energy, transportation, labor as well the Central Intelligence Agency and the Supreme Court, the review showed.
The exact time when the sites became unavailable was not clear. Nor was it known whether the sites were temporarily offline or taken down at the instruction of Trump’s administration.
But the development comes amid the administration’s controversial drive to radically shrink the US government.
Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive and the world’s richest person, is leading Trump’s federal cost-cutting efforts under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
On Monday, Musk said USAID will be shuttered, calling the agency which runs relief programs in about 120 countries a “criminal organization.”
USAID’s website was offline as employees were instructed by email not to go to their offices on Monday.
A slew of US government websites, including top public health agencies, have also scrubbed references to LGBTQ after a Trump directive last week instructing them to terminate all programs funded by taxpayers that promote “gender ideology,” US media reported.
Trump has already issued executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion in the government.
Key information and datasets related to HIV and LGBTQ youth have also disappeared from the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alarming health experts.
