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A federal judge on Friday ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also serving as the acting archivist, to collect any Signal messages belonging to top Trump officials that could be at risk of deletion and to refer those messages to the Department of Justice for further review.
Judge James Boasberg said his hands were tied beyond that and that he could not do anything about Signal messages that had already been deleted.
Boasberg’s order came in response to a watchdog group suing five of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members, including Rubio, after the Atlantic published a story revealing their Signal chat discussing imminent plans to conduct airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
Boasberg, who has become one of Trump’s top judicial nemeses because of his rulings in an unrelated immigration case, said the court record shows that the five Trump officials “have thus far neglected to fulfill their duties” under the Federal Records Act.
JUDGE IN CROSSHAIRS OF TRUMP DEPORTATION CASE ORDERS PRESERVATION OF SIGNAL MESSAGES
The judge said American Oversight, the left-leaning watchdog that brought the lawsuit, made a strong case that the Cabinet officials have used Signal, an encrypted messaging app, to communicate for work purposes and that they have allowed the messages to auto-delete, likely rendering them permanently lost.
But in the context of the Federal Records Act, Boasberg said he had limited options to address American Oversight’s allegations aside from demanding that Rubio ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure compliance with the law for existing Signal messages that were at risk of deletion.
Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, indicated in a statement that the group’s lawsuit was over for now but that it was “fully prepared” to sue again if it found the Trump administration failed to comply with Boabsberg’s order.
JUDGE TELLS GOVERNMENT WATCHDOGS FIRED BY TRUMP THERE’S NOT MUCH SHE CAN DO FOR THEM
“It should never have required court intervention to compel the acting Archivist and other agency heads to perform their basic legal duties, let alone to refer the matter to the Attorney General for enforcement,” Chukwu said.
The explosive Signal incident involved Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and others communicating about their attack plans in a chat group after then-National Security Adviser Mike Waltz apparently accidentally added an Atlantic journalist to the chat.
The Trump administration denied wrongdoing and insisted the communication was not “classified.” Bondi dodged a question during a press conference about investigating the incident and instead doubled down on the White House’s claims that the chat was merely “sensitive” and not “classified.”
The Pentagon inspector general launched an investigation into the incident in April in response to a bipartisan request from the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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