A federal judge just slammed the door on recovering deleted Signal messages from top Trump administration officials, leaving transparency advocates fuming.
According to The Hill, in a ruling that’s got both sides talking, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg decided it’s too late to retrieve the vanished chats but did nudge acting National Archivist and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to push for preserving what’s left across government agencies.
This saga kicked off when American Oversight, a group known for tangling with federal bigwigs over records, discovered that key Trump Cabinet members were hashing out a military strike on Yemen’s Houthis via the encrypted app Signal. Their chats, involving heavyweights like Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, took a bizarre turn when a journalist—Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic—was accidentally added to the group by former national security adviser Mike Waltz. Talk about a messaging misstep!
American Oversight didn’t waste time, filing lawsuits against five Trump officials—Defense Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. They demanded the preservation of all Signal communications and the recovery of anything already erased.
But Judge Boasberg wasn’t buying the recovery plea, pointing out that American Oversight itself admitted the deleted messages are likely gone for good. “At this juncture, the Court largely denies American Oversight’s slew of requests and will instead grant only narrower relief,” the judge declared. Well, that’s a polite way of saying, “Nice try, but no dice.”
The judge didn’t completely shut the door, though—he ordered Rubio to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to take steps to safeguard any remaining Signal chats at risk of disappearing. Yet, Boasberg was clear that Bondi can simply shrug off the request if she chooses. That’s hardly the ironclad protection some might have hoped for.
American Oversight’s executive director, Chioma Chukwu, came out swinging after the ruling. “It should never have required court intervention to compel the acting Archivist and other agency heads to perform their basic legal duties,” she said.
“But because they failed to act, the court has now stepped in to order what the law already requires,” Chukwu added. That’s a fair jab at bureaucratic inertia, but let’s be real—expecting encrypted chats to stick around in a high-stakes environment might be a bit optimistic.
“And if they drag their feet or fail to act, we are fully prepared to pursue further legal action,” Chukwu warned. That’s a bold promise, but with the judge’s skepticism on recovery, their next courtroom battle might be an uphill climb.
Boasberg also took a swipe at American Oversight’s flip-flopping on whether the messages could even be retrieved. “Although Plaintiff tries to walk that stance back... that belated assertion wilts,” he remarked. Ouch—sounds like the judge caught them in a bit of a rhetorical pickle.
At the heart of this mess is a bigger question: Should officials be using encrypted apps like Signal for sensitive discussions in the first place? While privacy is a legitimate concern, especially for national security matters like a potential strike on the Houthis, the risk of losing public records to a delete button is real.
More than a dozen top Trump officials were part of this Signal group, which shows just how common these tools are at the highest levels. Critics might argue this is a dodge around accountability, but supporters could counter that in a world of leaks and hacks, encryption is a necessary shield.
Let’s not pretend this is a black-and-white issue—government transparency matters, but so does protecting sensitive communications from falling into the wrong hands. American Oversight’s crusade for records isn’t wrongheaded, yet their expectation of recovering vanished digital whispers feels like chasing a ghost.
On the flip side, the Trump administration’s reliance on Signal isn’t inherently sinister—it’s pragmatic in an era where cyber threats loom large. Still, with a journalist accidentally privy to military strike talks, one wonders if “secure” messaging is secure enough. Perhaps it’s time for clearer rules on how these apps are used, rather than leaving it to after-the-fact courtroom showdowns.
