Head of the Pentagon and officials sued over chat in Signal

The US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and other officials of the Trump administration have been sued by a government oversight organization for using Signal to discuss military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, UNN reports, citing Axios.

Details

American Oversight claims in its lawsuit that a chat in an unclassified commercial application, which mistakenly included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, violated federal document laws.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, names Hegseth and officials including US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Acting Archivist.

American Oversight said in its statement that it seeks to "recover illegally deleted messages and prevent further destruction."

"The Federal Records Act requires federal officials to retain messages related to official government business," the non-profit organization said.

"Typically, agencies ensure that messages sent in applications like Signal are preserved by establishing policies that require officials and staff to forward them to official systems for proper archiving or take other steps to preserve their content," the organization said in a statement.

American Oversight Acting Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement that "reporting the disclosure of confidential military information in a Signal group chat involving a journalist is a wake-up call for government accountability and a potential crime."

Addition

Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz said on Tuesday that he takes "full responsibility" for the incident, telling Fox News that he created the group chat and "we made a mistake." He said lessons had been learned and "we don't use" the app anymore.

"Waltz learned the lesson": Trump supported the advisor after the leak of military plans in Signal25.03.25, 16:18 • 19693 views

Gabbard and Ratcliffe both testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that no classified information was passed during the conversation. They agreed to an audit of the conversation.