U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg—who is currently being targeted by President Donald Trump after blocking his efforts to deport migrants—was assigned to oversee a lawsuit filed against members of Trump’s cabinet related to sensitive messages sent in a Signal messaging chat with a journalist.
Judge James E. Boasberg, chief judge of the Federal District Court in DC, stands for a portrait at ... More
A lawsuit filed by watchdog group American Oversight against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and three other officials was assigned to Boasberg Wednesday morning, according to court documents.
Boasberg made headlines recently when he rejected the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a previous order he had issued barring the administration from deporting immigrants under one of Trump’s executive orders, and suggested the administration may have violated his order by sending migrants to El Salvador despite the ruling.
Following his rulings against Trump’s deportation plans, the president has called for Boasberg to be impeached, disbarred and called him a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator.”
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The lawsuit assigned to Boasberg on Wednesday alleges Hegseth and the other defendants failed “to meet their obligations under the Federal Records Act” by sending messages discussing “planned and active military operations” on Signal, an encrypted messaging app that can automatically delete messages. American Oversight said in the filing it was bringing the action under the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, and seeking to “prevent the unlawful destruction of federal records and to compel Defendants to fulfill their legal obligations to preserve and recover federal records created through unauthorized use of Signal for sensitive national security decision-making.”
News of the use of Signal by Cabinet officials to discuss war plans broke Monday when The Atlantic published an article by its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg alleging he was unintentionally put in a group chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, in which the leaders were discussing sensitive, potentially classified information. The article alleged Goldberg was added to a chat titled “Houthi PC small group” days before the U.S. struck the Houthis, and Goldberg said messages from Hegseth “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing”—though Hegseth later said “nobody was texting war plans.” Messages from what appeared to be Vice President JD Vance in the chat also expressed deviation from his public support of Trump’s plans. In response to the article, the National Security Council said the conversation “appears to be an authentic message chain” and it was investigating how an unknown number was added. The unintentional inclusion of Goldberg in the group chat is being widely considered a reckless move that could have put American troops and national security at risk. But Trump has stood by Waltz and the other officials amid calls for Waltz and Hegseth to step down or be removed, and the White House has insisted no classified information was shared in the chat. Waltz has said he doesn’t know and has never communicated with Goldberg (Goldberg said he doesn’t know Waltz personally, but they had met twice).
On Wednesday, The Atlantic and Goldberg published another article featuring screenshots of the full messages of the chat after the Trump administration spent two days attempting to discredit his claims. Goldberg said in Wednesday’s article that leading up to March 15, when the U.S. launched strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, much of the chat “concerned the timing and rationale of attacks,” but that on March 15 it “veered toward the operational.” The article included screenshots of the Signal chat in which Hegseth sent a “TEAM UPDATE” message that included exact strike times two hours before the attack on the U.S.’s primary target in the strike, a move Goldberg said could have produced “catastrophic” consequences for American pilots.
Watchdog Sues Trump Officials Over Signal War Plans Chat (Forbes)
Judge Boasberg Rejects Trump Request For Deportation Flights Under Alien Enemies Act—Again (Forbes)
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans (The Atlantic)
Hegseth Says ‘Nobody Was Texting War Plans’ After Atlantic Editor Claims He Was Part Of Signal Chat (Forbes)