The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said it gave no orders to shut down government websites amid confusion over complying with a new Trump administration policy requiring agencies to scrub any mentions of diversity on their site.
OPM said it has no intention of taking down all agency websites and called the reports a “false rumor.”
While the website for the Census appeared to be down Friday evening, several other major agency sites were still up and running.
President Trump said he didn’t know about the plan when asked about government websites potentially being shut down so they could be scrubbed for information about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs (DEI).
“I don’t know, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. DEI would have ruined our country,” the president said earlier on Friday. “If they want to scrub the website, that’s okay with me.”
CBS News reported on Friday that the memo to take steps to scrub agency websites was “misinterpreted.”
