C-SPAN Was Briefly Interrupted by a Russian News Network

C-SPAN says its online feed of House floor action was briefly interrupted Thursday by programming for the Russian news network RT. The network says the problem was likely a routing issue, since RT is one of the networks that C-SPAN regularly monitors.

Spokesman Howard Mortman says C-SPAN’s website was replaced by RT for about 10 minutes. He says the network is “investigating and troubleshooting this occurrence.”

The programming glitch came hours after a power outage interrupted a Senate confirmation hearing for Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA. The hearing reconvened in a different room.

pic.twitter.com/ybUWoxNTLn

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 12, 2017

Here's the moment Russia Today took over the C-SPAN1 feed. Unclear what happened. RT aired for about ten minutes before C-SPAN1 came back. pic.twitter.com/mhWVgCoFxF

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 12, 2017

The Architect of the Capitol’s office says a local power company “de-energized” a system that feeds power to the Hart Senate Office Building. The office says the company, Pepco, quickly restored the lost power.

Correction: This story originally ran under the headline “C-SPAN Confirms It Was Briefly Hacked by Russian News Site.” C-SPAN confirmed that an interruption took place but has not yet identified the cause of the interruption.