Judge says he will order government to preserve Signal messages about Houthi military strike
Source: AP
Updated 4:52 PM EDT, March 27, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday said he will order the Trump administration to preserve records of a text message chat in which senior national security officials discussed sensitive details of plans for a U.S. military strike against Yemen’s Houthis.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said during a hearing that he’ll issue a temporary restraining order barring administration officials from destroying messages sent over the encrypted messaging app Signal. A nonprofit watchdog, American Oversight, requested the order. A government attorney said the administration already was taking steps to collect and save the messages.
The Atlantic published the entire Signal chat on Wednesday. Its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been added to a discussion that included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Michael Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
On the chat, Hegseth provided the exact timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop before the attacks against Yemen’s Houthis began earlier this month. Hegseth laid out when a “strike window” would open, where a “target terrorist” was located and when weapons and aircraft would be used.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/signal-trump-houthis-strike-7d5a06d1c40a3c6af1c1ad1a772e87e0
REFERENCE (suit from "American Oversight" ) - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143425848
= new reply since forum marked as read
This is the appropriate ruling
https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-holds-hearing-administrations-signal-app/story
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the top cabinet officials named in a lawsuit by the government transparency group American Oversight to retain any messages sent and received over Signal between March 11 and March 15.
Benjamin Sparks, a lawyer representing American Oversight, raised concerns that "these messages are imminent danger of destruction" due to settings within Signal that can be set to delete messages automatically -- prompting Judge Boasberg to order the Trump administration file a sworn declaration by this Monday to ensure the messages are preserved.
The lawsuit -- which names Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the National Archives as defendants -- asked a federal judge to declare the use of Signal unlawful and order the cabinet members to preserve the records immediately, as Signal's deleting of messages violates governmental record-keeping requirements.
