A federal judge has slammed the brakes on any attempts to erase digital footprints from a covert group chat involving top Trump officials who reportedly discussed U.S. military strikes in Yemen over the Signal app — a platform notorious for its disappearing messages.
The command came down from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered agencies led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe to preserve Signal messages exchanged between March 11 and March 15. That time frame coincides with when a journalist at The Atlantic happened to catch wind of the chat — and the explosive content it contained.
What was spilled? Details of planned airstrikes on Houthi militants, including one message where Hegseth reportedly telegraphed the timing of an upcoming strike targeting a figure identified as a terrorist. The messages were said to be stripped of classification — a move some saw as an attempt to soften the blow of the leak.
But while the public eye has fixated on national security concerns, the courtroom battle is being fought on a different front: federal record-keeping law. American Oversight, a watchdog group, sued earlier this week, accusing agencies of breaking the law by using an app designed to auto-delete communications that ought to be preserved.
Chioma Chukwu, interim executive director at American Oversight, called the judge’s ruling a vital intervention. “The public has a right to know how decisions about war and national security are made — and accountability doesn’t disappear just because a message was set to auto-delete,” she said in a statement.
Not everyone was thrilled about the judge’s involvement. Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly claimed Boasberg was biased against the Trump administration, saying he was part of a judicial resistance movement trying to stall the former president’s agenda. Her remarks come just days after an appeals court upheld Boasberg’s earlier ruling that blocked the deportation of Venezuelan migrants — a decision that also drew fire from Trump himself.
Despite the high-profile nature of the case, the White House has kept quiet, offering no comment so far. Judge Boasberg’s chambers, too, have stayed silent.
As the legal clash unfolds, the broader story is just beginning: a glimpse into how the gears of war might have turned behind encrypted walls — and whether those conversations were ever meant to survive the light of day.
