About the Signal lawsuit assigned to Judge Boasberg...

[Moosepoop]

Here's a link to the lawsuit itself -- https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278806/gov.uscourts.dcd.278806.1.0.pdf

I read through it, and it seems that the watchdog group American Oversight, which filed the suit, has been seeking information through FOIA requests about this administration's use of the Signal app since January. They've been requesting info on emails, too, but heavy emphasis on the Signal app communications.

43. Plaintiff American Oversight has submitted multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to Defendants’ agencies, including several requests in 2025 that seek Signal messages.
44. On January 28, 2025, American Oversight submitted a FOIA request to DoD
(bearing American Oversight internal tracking number DOD-25-0183) seeking all records reflecting communications, expressly including Signal messages, between DoD officials, including Pete Hegseth, and anyone in the White House Office, containing one or more specified key terms, from January 20, 2025, through January 27, 2025. On January 28, 2025, DoD acknowledged the request and assigned it tacking number 25-F-2084. Upon information and belief, American Oversight’s request remains pending.

Similar requests were filed throughout the rest of January, February, and March up to the time of Signalgate hitting the news. The FOIA requests are frequent and many -- and have all been stonewalled up to this point. They all remain "pending."

The point is that American Oversight apparently had reason to believe, as early as late January, that this administration has been using the Signal app to avoid any official record of communications since the very start of the current presidency. What that belief is based on (other than the repeated stonewalling that followed the initial request) isn't spelled out in the lawsuit. But they've been doggedly pursuing this for months.

Part of what they're asking for in the lawsuit is for Judge Boasberg to declare the unlawfulness of each person's actions in using the Signal app and not sending the records to the Archives. Named in the suit is Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, Bessent, Rubio, and NARA (because Rubio is Acting Archivist).

This lawsuit is one to watch -- it could get very interesting.

[gab13by13]

1. Rubio is the acting archivist, WTF?

So Rubio won't have much to archive seeing as those Signal communications self-destruct.

Did I mention that Rubio was confirmed 99-0?

[SheltieLover]

2. Our Dem senators voted for him?

[Moosepoop]

4. Yep.

https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/analysis/marco-rubio-is-simultaneously-serving-in-three-government-roles-heres-why-thats-a-problem/

The top Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday demanded information about Marco Rubio’s “triple hatted” appointment at the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Archives and Records Administration in light of the destruction of documents at USAID earlier this month.

In a letter to Secretary of State Rubio, who was confirmed to that post by the Senate earlier this year but since then has been appointed acting USAID administrator and acting archivist, Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., called the arrangement “grossly inappropriate,” given the three agencies’ statutory independence and separate missions.

“As you know, the archivist of the United States is chiefly responsible for overseeing federal government records management and preservation, including the planning, development and administration of federal policies and procedures for such federal records,” Connolly and Meeks wrote. “Your temporary appointment to NARA represents a fundamental conflict of interest that undermines Congress’ intent with the Federal Records Act and the integrity of NARA.”

This conflict was in stark relief earlier this month, when a memo to some of the small fraction of remaining on-duty USAID employees on March 11 called on them to collect classified documents from safes across the agency’s headquarters and destroy them, using both shredders and burn bags.

[MayReasonRule]

6. Sad Confirmation Of What I'm Guessing The Largest Majority Have Feared Being True

Power corrupts.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[SheltieLover]

3. If the USA had REAL media, they would have picked up on the FOIs & reported on it!

[Ms. Toad]

5. From February 18th, on, there's this to support the belief they are using Signal

On February 18th, Katie Arrington was named the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity and Chief Information Security Officer at the Department of Defense by the Trump Administration. She had served in the previous Administration in a similar role.

According to my source inside the Pentagon, shortly after Arrington’s arrival at DoD she issued a waiver and authorized the various service CIO’s to deploy Signal on government devices.

And, reading between the lines, it suggests they were using Signal on their private phones - until they were told they couldn't take their private phones into a SCIF.

They relented on leaving their phones outside the classified spaces but demanded that CIO install Signal on their government devices. One senior uniformed official told me source that, “they all use Signal and need it to communicate with the White House,” which they took to mean its being used on their personal devices already.

https://fpwellman.substack.com/p/exclusive-dod-has-deployed-signal

[Moosepoop]

7. Thanks, Ms. Toad!

I had skimmed through all the requests, but missed all that info that you posted! That helps clarify the basis of American Oversight's pursuit of the records (or more accurately, proof of willful failure to retain the records).

I hope this lawsuit leads to some sort of concrete action. Thanks again!

[orangecrush]

8. ...

[Martin68]

9. That's good news. Trump officials are using signals to avoid leaving a record of their discussions and decisions.

That is illegal above and beyond the security implications.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. Deadline: Legal Blog-Trump officials draw judge from deportation case in Signal chat lawsuit

Judge Boasberg was already separately examining the government’s “state secrets” invocation in the Alien Enemies Act litigation.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/signal-chat-lawsuit-boasberg-signalgate-rcna198186

The Trump administration this week invoked the “state secrets” privilege to try and keep U.S. District Judge James Boasberg from further investigating whether the government violated his orders on deportations. “The information sought by the Court is subject to the state secrets privilege because disclosure would pose reasonable danger to national security and foreign affairs,” officials argued in a court filing to Boasberg on Monday.

In technically unrelated news, The Atlantic that same day published a shocking report that the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally added to a group chat with top members of President Donald Trump’s national security team, in which the officials discussed an impending military operation in Yemen earlier this month. “The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming,” Goldberg wrote.......

The Trump administration this week invoked the “state secrets” privilege to try and keep U.S. District Judge James Boasberg from further investigating whether the government violated his orders on deportations. “The information sought by the Court is subject to the state secrets privilege because disclosure would pose reasonable danger to national security and foreign affairs,” officials argued in a court filing to Boasberg on Monday.

In technically unrelated news, The Atlantic that same day published a shocking report that the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally added to a group chat with top members of President Donald Trump’s national security team, in which the officials discussed an impending military operation in Yemen earlier this month. “The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming,” Goldberg wrote.

That evolving scandal — and the lack of consequences to date for the administration officials involved — emerges as the government asserts national security concerns to Boasberg in the ongoing litigation over Trump’s bid to summarily deport people under the Alien Enemies Act.