American Oversight Sues Trump Administration for Using Signal to Plan Military Operations

Following bombshell reporting that top Trump administration officials used the auto-deleting messaging app Signal to coordinate high-level, allegedly classified war operations, nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight filed a lawsuit against those officials for violations of the Federal Records Act and Administrative Procedure Act. 

The lawsuit seeks to prevent further unlawful destruction of federal records and to compel the recovery of any records created through their unauthorized use of Signal. Those named in the suit include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of State and acting Archivist Marco Rubio.

American Oversight’s lawsuit was first reported by HuffPost.

Yesterday, the Atlantic reported that the top national security officials named above, as well as Vice President J.D. Vance and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, discussed war operations in a private Signal group chat that included Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, who appears to have been added by mistake. According to Goldberg, messages in the group chat were set to disappear after a certain number of days. American Oversight’s lawsuit underscores the serious risks to democratic accountability when public officials conduct government business on secretive, untraceable platforms — particularly when those platforms are designed to erase records.

“This reported disclosure of sensitive military information in a Signal group chat that included a journalist is a five-alarm fire for government accountability and potentially a crime,” said American Oversight Interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwu. “War planning doesn’t belong in emoji-laden disappearing group chats. It belongs in secure facilities designed to safeguard national interests — something any responsible government official should have known. Our lawsuit seeks to ensure these federal records are preserved and recovered. The American people deserve answers and we won’t stop until we get them.”

The Federal Records Act requires federal officials to preserve communications related to official government business. Generally, agencies ensure retention of messages sent on apps like Signal by setting policies requiring officials and personnel to forward them to official systems for proper archival or take other steps to preserve their content.

Since President Trump took office, American Oversight has filed numerous lawsuits and launched investigations into Trump’s mass firing of independent inspectors general, DOGE’s secretive efforts to invade agencies, the Trump administration’s quid pro quo campaign with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and its directive to USAID staff to shred and burn government records. American Oversight will continue to hold Trump and his allies accountable by shining a light on the administration’s actions.

American Oversight also played a key role in holding the Trump administration accountable during the president’s first term. Using public records backed by aggressive litigation, American Oversight uncovered extensive evidence of corruption, conflicts of interest, and abuses of power throughout the administration.