Congressional Offices Paralyzed By Microsoft Outage

Congressional staffers were left struggling to conduct business only days into the lame-duck session amid widespread Microsoft outages on Thursday, with staffers expressing frustration to POLITICO over the ongoing situation.

The global outage impacted the Microsoft 365 suite, which includes Outlook email accounts, used widely in Washington federal offices. Microsoft posted on X Thursday that users “in any region” may have been affected by the outage, which was due to “a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable.” The company later wrote it was “opening all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief.”

But as Microsoft worked to quickly diagnose the problem and restore services, some congressional work was put on hold, several Hill staffers — all granted anonymity to discuss the situation freely — told POLITICO.

“We all use Outlook, that’s our life, everything is there, our calendar is there, our boss’s calendar, so it has been a challenge … with no access to our Bible,” one House staffer said. “There goes a day of legislative work.”

Sharon Eliza Nichols, director of communications for Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), said on X Thursday that she was “frustrated” by the outage, and asked “shall we start conducting all official business via DM?”

Samantha Carter, spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer that oversees IT for the House, confirmed to POLITICO on Thursday that House offices were impacted by the Microsoft outage, and said the CAO sent out a “campus-wide alert” to inform House staffers.

POLITICO was not immediately able to contact the Senate Sergeant at Arms office, which oversees IT concerns in that chamber, due to the outage.

Several Hill staffers found their days completely derailed by the outage, which occurred during a particularly active period as lawmakers try to negotiate final policy deals during the lame-duck congressional session.

“I use Outlook and it’s been incredibly disruptive,” a second House staffer said. “We’re in the middle of end-of-year negotiations on pending legislation and planning for next Congress. Teams only goes so far. It’s really frustrating.”

The outage highlighted the need for Capitol Hill offices to have fallback communication systems in place outside of email.

“There are also things that get sent around — invites, whip notices, etc — that you can find other places but people are used to getting by email,” one Democratic chief of staff told POLITICO.

“We are continuing our work through other means of communication — it’s just a pain,” a third Hill staffer said.

The outage wasn’t all bad. A fourth House staffer told POLITICO that while they “can’t do any work,” they noted that “the park and the Starbucks are both packed.”

John Hewitt Jones contributed to this report.