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Judge orders participants in Signal chat group blunder to preserve all messages

www.theguardian.com

Judge orders participants in Signal chat group blunder to preserve all messages

A federal judge on Thursday ordered that the Trump administration preserve all Signal messages exchanged in the now-infamous Signal group chat in which officials conducted a high-level military operation on the unclassified commercial app and inadvertently included a journalist.

The temporary restraining order from James Boasberg, the chief US district judge in Washington, compelled defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio, treasury secretary Scott Bessent, CIA director John Ratcliffe and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, to save their texts from 11 to 15 March.

Boasberg made clear that his order was aimed at ensuring no messages from the Signal chat were lost – the group chat was set to automatically delete messages after a certain time period – and not because he decided the Trump administration had done anything wrong.

I'd advise Boasberg, who's already drawn the ire of the junta over the El Salvador ruling, to stay on the first floor if he must be near a window.

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