A federal judge has directed the Trump administration to save all messages shared in a now-famous Signal chat group, which accidentally included a reporter. The temporary restraining order, issued by Chief US District Judge James Boasberg, targets messages shared between senior officials like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The messages between March 11 and 15 need to be saved to avoid automatic deletion, which was programmed by the Signal app’s disappearing message feature.
The leak occurred after a national security breach when National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to the group chat. The discussion contained classified information on military operations, including information about an airstrike on Houthi rebel forces in Yemen. The messages revealed confidential operational details, including the time of F-18 fighter aircraft launches, bombings, and naval missile strikes.
One of the messages carried by Waltz had extremely sensitive information, including up-to-date information on a missile target in Yemen, which was obtained from an Israeli intelligence source. This revelation raised alarm since it risked compromising US intelligence and informants’ safety. The Israeli government was said to have reacted angrily after the message was made public.
The suit, brought by transparency organization American Oversight, accuses Signal chat of breaching the Federal Records Act, which requires the preservation of communications by the government. The group maintains that the chat involved significant policy discussions that must be preserved for transparency and accountability.
The Trump White House, during a hearing before a court, assured that those agencies who took part in the Signal chat were attempting to save the messages. Nevertheless, how extensively each agency made an effort at preservation is yet to be clarified. As an accompanying measure, the White House has enacted a new “records retention policy” mandating that communications sent on the Signal app must be saved.
The court will subsequently determine if the Signal chat broke federal records retention regulations. The case highlights the increasing alarm about using unclassified messaging applications for official government communications and the danger of losing valuable government records.
