Signal group chat leak: judge orders Trump administration to preserve all messages from 11-15 March – as it happened

 

    Screenshot of the Trump advisers’ group chat shown during a congressional hearing this week.

James Boasberg, the judge Donald Trump has criticized for his handling of court proceedings on Trump’s hardline immigration policy, is currently presiding over a hearing in a lawsuit related to the “Signalgate” incident.

Trump recently posted a lengthy complaint about Boasberg, calling his assignment to the case “disgraceful” and suggesting that the process was biased against him. He wrote: “Boasberg, who is the Chief Judge of the DC District Court, seems to be grabbing the ‘Trump Cases’ all to himself, even though it is not supposed to happen that way. 

The good news is that it probably doesn’t matter because it is virtually impossible for me to get an honest ruling in D.C. Our nation’s courts are broken, especially in New York and D.C., where corruption and radicalism reign supreme. There must be an immediate investigation into this rigged system before it’s too late!”

In response, Boasberg felt compelled to clarify the random case assignment process during his Thursday hearing, emphasizing that he did not request or seek out this case personally.

Boasberg has ordered that all agencies involved in the Signalgate group chat preserve all Signal messages exchanged between March 11 and 15 and provide an update on their efforts to comply.

For context, "Signalgate" refers to a group chat about airstrikes in Yemen between top national security advisers. It contained sensitive national security information, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz allegedly added Jeffery Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, to the chat by mistake. Lawmakers have called for an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general into this use of a non-secure device to send attack plans.

In other developments, amid fears of losing her House seat, Donald Trump withdrew Representative Elise Stefanik’s nomination for US Ambassador to the UN.

Judge Boasberg has also ordered government agencies to retain all Signal chat messages related to Signalgate, which are now the focus of litigation.

In response to reports of student visa revocations, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated: “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these extremists, I revoke their visa.”

Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi has directed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate four California universities—Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine—over concerns that they are using “illegal DEI policies” in admissions.

Trump has signed an executive order directing Vice President JD Vance to eliminate what he called “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from Smithsonian museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.

Finally, a Russian scientist working at Harvard has been detained by ICE and faces deportation to Russia, where she risks imprisonment for protesting the war in Ukraine.