American Oversight Launches Investigation into Trump Administration’s Widespread Use of Signal
Following revelations that Signal use is more widespread than previously known, and after American Oversight's court victory preserving federal records on encrypted platform, organization targets Signal use by top officials at 25 agencies, including DOJ, FBI, and OMB in new FOIA push
Today, nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight launched an investigation into the Trump administration’s use of the Signal messaging app for official government business, following related reporting in The Atlantic and American Oversight’s recent lawsuit regarding the administration’s use of the auto-deleting app to discuss sensitive military planning.
This investigation comes just days after the Trump administration tried to declare the Signal messaging scandal “case closed” — despite bipartisan concern over the potential breach and unanswered questions about its handling and amid new reports that administration officials, including National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, engaged in “multiple other sensitive national-security conversations on Signal with cabinet members.”
In addition to the agencies involved in Signalgate (Departments of Defense, State, and the Treasury, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency), American Oversight sent multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, the Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Education, and Energy, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of Management and Budget, Small Business Administration, U.S. DOGE Service, Social Security Administration, General Services Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and Office of Personnel Management, seeking all Signal messages sent or received by officials since Jan. 20 and guidance the agencies have created or received about using Signal. The responses to these requests will shed light on the Trump administration’s potentially widespread use of Signal and its compliance with federal recordkeeping laws.
“Using disappearing, encrypted messaging apps like Signal to conduct sensitive government business isn’t just irresponsible — it poses serious risks to national security, undermines accountability, and may violate federal records laws designed to protect the public’s right to know,” said American Oversight interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “Senior officials’ use of Signal to discuss the Yemen military strike wasn’t an isolated incident – it fits a pattern within the Trump administration’s ongoing war on transparency. Our investigation aims to uncover just how widespread this practice is across agencies and to hold the Trump administration accountable to its legal duty to preserve records of its decision-making. The public has a right to know that all senior-level officials — not just a select few — are obeying their obligations to preserve federal records in order to provide the transparency that our democracy depends on.”
Following the bombshell reporting in The Atlantic last week, American Oversight filed a lawsuit and motion for temporary retraining order seeking to prevent further unlawful destruction of these federal records and to compel the recovery of any records on Signal. On Friday, March 28, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted American Oversight’s motion, ordering the preservation of all Signal messages belonging to the defendants, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of State and acting Archivist Marco Rubio.