Multiple US govt websites crash during Biden's State of the Union address, back online after 20 minutes

Multiple government websites of US government including Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency reported outage as President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address on Thursday.

According to a Daily Mail report, the websites were back online after 20 minutes interruption.

No specific reason was given for the outage but Department of Homeland Security officials said it does not appear to be malicious, added the report.

Major government websites that reported outage included Homeland Security (DHS),  Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), US Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

According to Search.gov, a search engine by and for the federal government, planned maintenance was scheduled from 3 pm to 6 pm on Thursday.

While the government agency websites are down, much of the nation was watching Biden’s pivotal State of the Union.

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“Why are a bunch of government websites down at this moment in time. It seems like everyone is distracted by the state of the union so there’s a bunch of backdoor shady stuff going on right now,” said X user John Winters.

Another user Jonathan Newburg said, “Very strange that US Government websites are down during the #StateOfTheUnion address.”

With inputs from agencies