Agencies asked to scrub federal government websites to remove diversity-related content

The Trump administration plans to scrub some federal government websites in order to remove content contrary to the president’s thinking, administration officials told CBS News, and word spread quickly throughout Washington about actions that might be taken to alter the websites.

There was confusion about whether sites would be entirely shut down, but federal department and agency websites remained functional Friday. 

“The agency websites are still up and running,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CBS News. 

Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management early last week instructed all federal agencies to take steps “no later than 5:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday” to “take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) of DEIA offices.” The directive referred to Jan. 22. 

Some of the memo was misinterpreted by agencies and people who would be affected in Washington, aides said. 

President Trump, asked by reporters in the Oval Office Friday if websites would be shut down to remove diversity-related content, replied, “If they want to scrub the websites, that’s OK with me.”

Separately, Politico reported that Agriculture Department employees had been ordered to delete landing pages on climate change across agency websites, according to an internal email, and said the directive had come from the USDA’s communications office.

Multiple officials from health departments and nonprofits receiving federal funding say they’ve been told to scrub mentions of gender and equity from their programs, in order to comply with President Trump’s executive order this week, CBS News confirmed. Reuters first reported this directive.

It’s unclear how health departments and nonprofits would be able to comply with the sweeping instructions in many situations, especially given that many health programs were explicitly designed to overcome equity gaps or diseases that have disproportionately affected transgender people.

One local health official said that Trump administration officials had said over the long term, grantees might also need to comply with the federal order banning pronouns in email signatures, a requirement that was initially thought to affect only federal staff.

contributed to this report.