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Left to right: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Trump administration officials are being sued by a government watchdog group for using Signal to discuss military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen.
The big picture: American Oversight alleges in its lawsuit that the chat on the unclassified commercial app that mistakenly included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg violated federal records laws.
Driving the news: The suit that was filed in a D.C. federal court names Hegseth and officials including national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Marco Rubio in his capacities as secretary of state and acting archivist.
- American Oversight said in a statement it's seeking to "recover unlawfully deleted messages and prevent further destruction."
- "The Federal Records Act requires federal officials to preserve communications related to official government business," the nonprofit said.
- "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."
What they're saying: American Oversight interim executive director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement the "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."
- Pentagon representatives declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation. Representatives for the DNI, CIA and NARA did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening.
The big picture: National security adviser Mike Waltz said Tuesday he takes "full responsibility" for the incident, telling Fox News he built the group chat and "we made a mistake." He said lessons were learned and "we're not using" the encrypted app anymore.
- President Trump made clear earlier Tuesday he didn't plan to fire his national security adviser and later told Newsmax "somebody that was with Mike Waltz, worked with Mike Waltz at a lower level, had, I guess Goldberg's" phone number."
- Gabbard and Ratcliffe both testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that no classified information was shared during the chat. They agreed to an audit of the conversation.
Read the lawsuit in full, via DocumentCloud:
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- Waltz's emoji trio reaction to Yemen strikes goes viral
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- Top Trump officials' Signal blunder becomes top news story of 2025
Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment by President Trump.
