American Oversight Lawsuit Forces CIA to Confirm Federal Records Were Destroyed in Signalgate Scandal

Late yesterday, in a startling revelation stemming from American Oversight’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, the Central Intelligence Agency confirmed that crucial Signal messages on Director John Ratcliffe’s device were deleted by someone with access to the discussion — exposing what appears to be an illegal destruction of federal records.

Multiple intelligence and defense agencies have now submitted court-ordered declarations about their deficient preservation efforts, with troubling inconsistencies emerging among them. The Defense and State Departments conducted searches on March 27, while the Office of the Director of National Intelligence followed on March 28 — yet all three agencies suspiciously omitted details about what content was actually preserved. Alarmingly, the CIA’s belated March 31 search of Ratcliffe’s device, which recovered only the chat name and “administrative notifications,” showed the “profile names and message settings” in the Signal chat were altered on March 26 and 28 — only days after American Oversight filed its lawsuit.

“These revelations confirm our fears: The Trump administration appears to be systematically and illegally destroying evidence to hide its actions from the American people,” said Chioma Chukwu, interim Executive Director of American Oversight. “Using encrypted, disappearing messages on Signal for official government business violates the Federal Records Act and represents a calculated strategy to undermine transparency and accountability despite the grave risk it poses to our national security and the safety of our men and women in uniform. This attack on government transparency threatens the very foundation of our democracy, and we are committed to using every legal tool available to expose the truth and hold those responsible accountable.”

The declarations come in response to a federal court order requiring multiple government agencies to provide additional details about their preservation efforts in American Oversight’s lawsuit against top Trump administration officials for their use of Signal for official government business. Despite the Trump administration’s argument that its declarations demonstrated its “best efforts to preserve” all relevant Signal communications, Judge James Boasberg ordered the government to supply new declarations by Monday, April 14, that clarified the scope and timing of their preservation efforts for potential federal records involved in the Signalgate group chat.

On Friday, April 4, American Oversight filed its opposition to the Trump administration’s court-ordered status report and declarations. The filing argued that the administration’s response was grossly inadequate in addressing the unlawful destruction of federal records, and indicated that relevant records may have already been deleted.

On Thursday, April 10, at a hearing, American Oversight Senior Counsel Benjamin Sparks explained why most of the agencies’ declarations provided in response to Judge Boasberg’s March 27 order fell short by leaving open questions about what the agencies had preserved, when they had begun preservation efforts, and other meaningful details. Sparks also informed the court that American Oversight would soon file an amended complaint to address recent revelations about even more Signal communications beyond those cited in the original complaint.

American Oversight will respond to the government’s supplemental declarations by Wednesday, April 16.