Federal judge who blocked Trump deportation plan to oversee Signal messaging case News
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Federal judge who blocked Trump deportation plan to oversee Signal messaging case

A lawsuit challenging the use of a commercial messaging app by members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet to coordinate military strike plans in Yemen was assigned on Wednesday to Judge James Boasberg, the same federal judge whose ruling on Venezuelan deportations to El Salvador recently sparked tensions between the White House and judiciary.

The latest lawsuit assigned to Boasberg stems from the accidental inclusion of a prominent US journalist in a group chat with several high-level Trump cabinet officials, including National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Among others, the chat also included US Vice President JD Vance and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, who has had a major impact on various elements of US foreign affairs since Trump reentered the White House in January.

On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, revealed that he had been included in the chat, in which the officials discussed plans for missile strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The next day, American Oversight — a government transparency advocacy group — filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump officials’ use of messaging app Signal to discuss military operations. The group alleges the officials violated federal law by using Signal’s auto-delete feature for discussions about military operations and failing to preserve these communications as required by the Federal Records Act.

The group seeks court declarations that these messages are federal records, injunctions compelling officials to comply with record-keeping laws, referral to the Attorney General for enforcement, and recovery of deleted communications.

On Wednesday, court documents revealed the case had been assigned to Boasberg. Earlier this month, Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to halt Trump’s plans to invoke the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members en masse to El Salvadorean prisons. The Trump administration moved forward with the deportations of some 238 suspected gang members regardless, prompting concerns about a constitutional crisis.

Following Boasberg’s order and subsequent demands for explanation, Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment, describing him as a “Radical Left Lunatic…a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.”

Boasberg was in fact appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by Republican President George W. Bush in 2002, before being nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama to the US District Court for the District Columbia, where he now serves as chief judge.

 

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Treaty of Paris ends Crimean War

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