On Thursday, President Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats in response to the country's alleged coordinated hacks during the presidential election

That channel is funded by the Russian government and is broadcast to countries

Shortly after some Twitter users began to comment that Russia Today was also down in the

The founder of Drudge Report got a very unpleasant surprise Thursday night when the popular news aggregation website went down for 90 minutes.

Matt Drudge wrote on his Twitter account that the website had been targeted with the biggest Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) it had ever experienced in its 21 year history, leaving users unable to access content.

He also stated that the 'routing and timing' of the attack was 'VERY suspicious,' which then led him to tweet: 'Is the US government attacking DRUDGE REPORT?'

Drudge then followed up with another tweet shortly after, writing: 'Attacking coming from "thousands" of sources. Of course none of them traceable to Fort Meade...'

The suggestion that the Obama administration might have launched a targeted attack against the website polarized Twitter users, with fans of Drudge Report supporting its founder's suspicions and detractors responding with disbelief and in some cases outrage at the allegation.

Shortly before the website went down, it was announced that President Obama had deemed 35 Russian diplomats 'persona non grata' following evidence that the country used coordinated hacks to try and influence the presidential election, giving individuals just 72 hours to get out of the country.

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Theory: Drudge Report founder Matt Drudge (left in 2005) questioned whether the US government (President Obama on right earlier this month) was behind his website's outage on Thursday

Question: Drudge wrote on Twitter: 'Is the US government attacking DRUDGE REPORT?' (above)

Thoughts: He also called the routing and timing of the attack 'VERY suspicious'

Supporters of Drudge's theory used the news that the website was down to immediately start attacking President Obama, who a number of individuals likened to Hitler.

One Twitter user responded to Drudge asking if it could have been a government attack by writing: 'probably , yes. Obama is hitler.'

That tweet led to another user responding: 'Pretty much! He certainly seems to hate jews! Not many days left in his reign.'

And soon after that same user tweeted: '#WorstPresidentEver = B. Hussein Obama.'

A number of those who supported Drudge's belief that the website was possibly the victim of government interference also claimed that Russia Today was also down around the same time on Thursday.

WHAT IS A DDOS ATTACK? DDoS attacks are a primitive form of hacking using botnets - networks of computers that hackers bring under their control. They do this by getting users to inadvertently download software, typically by following a link in an email or agreeing to download a corrupted file. These botnets are then used to bombard the servers with simple requests for information carried out simultaneously, causing them to become overwhelmed and shut down. Advertisement

Russia Today is a television network that is funded by the Russian government but airs outside the country.

There is also a news website that provides content in a number of languages, including English and Russian.

'Numerous reports of Russian state-run Network RT being unavailable,' wrote reporter Mikael Thalen on Twitter, noting that it coincided with what Drudge had classified as the 'biggest DDoS attack since site's inception.'

Thalen also backed up his claim the Russia Today was unavailable by posting screengrabs that showed errors when people tried to access the channel on their televisions.

'Russia Today no longer avail on my TV cable service,' wrote Ben Watson of Washington DC in one of the grabs, alongside an picture of his error message.

More problems: Shortly after some Twitter users began to comment that Russia Today was also down in the Washington DC market (above)

Coincidence: That channel is funded by the Russian government and broadcast to countries around the world

Drudge Report was back up and running on Friday, with a story about Putin and Obama front and center (above)

Another television viewer in the DC area tweeted that he too could not access the channel around that time as well.

Meanwhile, others mocked Drudge for even questioning if the government was involved, with one Hillary Clinton supporter joking: 'maybe it's a 400 pound guy in New Jersey.'

And another man tweeted at Drudge: 'Serious question: when has any one of your paranoid short-circuited half-baked garbleplops ever been right? Like, ever?'