U.S. Judge James Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the deletion of any messages from the contentious chat.
A federal judge has declared that the U.S. government must retain messages from a Signal chat in which high-ranking officials discussed plans to target Houthi positions in Yemen.
This chat has incited national controversy due to the inadvertent involvement of a journalist from The Atlantic, who participated in discussions that disclosed sensitive military data.
On Thursday, Judge James Boasberg mandated that the Trump administration implement steps to preserve the complete record of the conversation conducted between March 11 and March 15, when the journalist had access.
The judge’s decision arises from concerns that the messages could be deleted, potentially breaching federal records regulations.
A nonprofit organization, American Oversight, sought a temporary restraining order to stop the deletion of the original messages, which were eventually shared in The Atlantic this week.
They contended that these messages should be made available to the public and highlighted that The Atlantic reported the Signal messages were programmed for automatic deletion – some within a week, others within four weeks.
“This represents nothing less than a systematic attempt to circumvent record retention regulations in the federal government,” the lawyers for American Oversight stated in a court document. “There is no valid justification for this conduct, which prevents the public and Congress from being informed about government actions.”
The nonprofit based its case on the Federal Records Act of 1950, which lays out guidelines for governmental transparency.
This legislation establishes standards for maintaining and disclosing government documents and has been amended to incorporate electronic documents as well.
However, American Oversight has claimed that the Trump administration might be utilizing Signal – a messaging application that offers end-to-end encryption – to sidestep compliance with the law.
“The defendants’ reliance on a non-classified commercial app even for critical matters like military operation planning leads to the unavoidable inference that Signal has been used for other official government communications,” their court filing asserted.
A spokesperson for the Trump administration assured Judge Boasberg that measures were already in place to collect and safeguard any outstanding messages.
The use of Signal for confidential exchanges surfaced on Monday when The Atlantic published the first of several articles on the topic by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
Goldberg detailed that he received an invitation from someone appearing to be National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to join a conversation on the app.
Upon accepting the invitation, he discovered he was among some of the highest-ranking officials in the U.S.: Accounts seemingly belonging to Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth were part of the chat.
Goldberg recognized the integrity of the conversation – realizing it was not an elaborate prank – when, on March 15, the bombings discussed in the chat occurred in real life.
“I have never encountered a breach quite like this,” Goldberg remarked in his initial article. “It’s not unusual for national-security officials to communicate via Signal. However, the app is primarily used for logistical coordination, not for detailed and confidential discussions regarding impending military actions.”
The Trump administration responded to the article by denying that any classified information had been disclosed in the chat.
Nonetheless, Goldberg followed up with a second article sharing additional messages that outlined the timeline for the bombing campaign, including when the F-18 planes carrying the missiles would take off.
“Look, look, it’s all a witch-hunt,” Trump remarked during an event on Wednesday, rejecting calls to dismiss Waltz and Hegseth or to issue an apology. He also pointed fingers at Signal, suggesting the app “could be defective.”
Chioma Chukwu, the interim executive director of American Oversight, commended Judge Boasberg’s ruling on Thursday to prevent the destruction of the messages.
“We are thankful for the judge’s decision to halt any destruction of these critical records. The public deserves to understand how decisions about war and national security are made – accountability does not vanish simply because a message is programmed to auto-delete,” Chukwu stated.
