Following Weekend Hegseth Revelations, American Oversight Files Amended Complaint in Signalgate Lawsuit

Monday, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grapples with additional fallout from sharing sensitive information with reporters and other civilians, including family and friends, nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight filed an amended complaint in its Signalgate lawsuit against the Trump administration. This filing seeks judicial intervention, including:

• A declaration that the Trump administration’s messages sent and received over Signal are, in fact, federal records subject to the Federal Records Act (FRA);
• An order to relevant agency heads to implement record-keeping programs to ensure departmental compliance with the FRA; and 
• An order to the administration to preserve all materials relating to American Oversight’s claims under the FRA.

In the weeks since American Oversight filed its initial lawsuit and launched an investigation into Trump administration officials’ unlawful use of Signal for discussing sensitive information and planning military attacks, mounting evidence has suggested that the behavior is not isolated but a broader pattern of behavior.

“It is now evident the administration’s unlawful use of Signal to conduct — and delete — sensitive government business is a feature and not a bug,” said Chioma Chukwu, interim Executive Director of American Oversight. “We cannot stand idly by while senior government officials share imminent attack plans with their family and friends, putting our national security at risk and betraying the men and women in uniform whose very lives are endangered as a result. This case concerns a clear and urgent threat to the preservation of government records, so we are asking the court to act swiftly and decisively to ensure this administration complies with the Federal Records Act.”

As the Department of Defense descends into chaos marked by several high-profile departures, including chief Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot, who stated that the original Signalgate incident kicked off a “month of hell” at the agency, an alarming new development has emerged in this ongoing story. Over the weekend, news broke that Secretary Hegseth shared the same detailed, highly sensitive information about future U.S. strikes in Yemen on March 15 in another private Signal chat on his personal cellphone that included his wife, brother, personal lawyer, and “about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle.” This other chat, titled “Defense | Team Huddle,” was apparently created before Hegseth was sworn in as Secretary of Defense, but continued after he was confirmed and included discussions of government business. The chat therefore contains federal records subject to the FRA.

Auto-deleting personal Signal chats is not the only method by which this administration is unlawfully destroying government records, either. It’s likely that more records containing sensitive information have been destroyed since Jeffrey Goldberg first brought these concerning practices to the public’s attention in The Atlantic.

This pervasive destruction of official government communications violates the FRA, thwarts government transparency, and threatens national security. In the last six weeks, more than a dozen senior Trump administration officials have admitted to using Signal — a private messaging application known for its automatic message deletion feature — to conduct official government business on several sensitive topics. A Central Intelligence Agency representative has even admitted in a sworn statement that the agency’s screenshots of the “Houthi PC Small Group” chat failed to include any substantive messages.