Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Trump administration officials are facing a lawsuit from the government watchdog group American Oversight for using Signal to discuss military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen.
The lawsuit alleges that the conversation, which mistakenly included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, violated federal records laws by taking place on an unclassified commercial app.
Filed in a D.C. federal court, the suit names Hegseth along with national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Marco Rubio in his roles as secretary of state and acting archivist. American Oversight said it aims to “recover unlawfully deleted messages and prevent further destruction.”
The nonprofit emphasized that the Federal Records Act requires officials to preserve communications related to government business and stated that agencies typically ensure retention of messages on encrypted apps by mandating they be forwarded to official systems or otherwise archived.
According to The Atlantic’s own reporting in 2017, Signal—which they labeled the gold standard of encrypted messaging and calling—was used by staffers in President Trump’s first term, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
National security adviser Mike Waltz said Tuesday that he takes “full responsibility” for the incident, telling Fox News he created the group chat and acknowledged, “we made a mistake.” He added that lessons were learned and confirmed, “we’re not using” the encrypted app anymore.
The Atlantic magazine on Wednesday released what it described as the full text of a group chat mistakenly shared with a journalist by top Trump administration officials, revealing plans for an imminent attack on Yemen.
The magazine said it decided to publish the messages after the Trump administration ‘repeatedly denied that any classified information had been discussed in the unsecure chat.’
NSA Mike Waltz addressed the Atlantic Magazine report, emphasizing that no sensitive information was compromised. “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent,” Waltz stated. “BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests.”
Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team are investigating how The Atlantic editor was added to a Signal group chat discussing a U.S. military attack in Yemen, a senior White House official confirmed to ABC News.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also addressed the issue on Fox News, saying, “Elon Musk’s team of experts is looking at this, and the National Security Council is all digging into this matter to ensure this could never happen again.”
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