Judge orders all Signal chat records preserved

Donald Trump has been getting crushed by the courts while trying to carry out his agenda, but now he has bigger problems.

#SignalGate has taken over the news cycle, which has now resulted in a lawsuit against the administration. The judge assigned to the case… Judge Boasberg, who is also presiding over the deportations case involving alleged gang members.

The Shifting Stance

We have covered this fairly extensively, but it is important to understand how the Trump narrative is changing regarding #SignalGate impacts the legal problems this administration now faces over this leak.

The story broke on Monday, with Trump claiming the media telling him about it was the first time he had heard about it. Hegseth was among the first to react, denying that “war plans” were mentioned in the texts.

By Tuesday, limited texts had been revealed, and why they were not technically war plans, there was far too much information included, but the Trump administration maintained no classified information had been leaked. It also started to push the narrative that the story was a complete hoax.

By Thursday, members of the chat group had been called before Congress, Trump softened his tone to point the finger at Mike Waltz, his National Security Adviser, and a lawsuit had been filed over the leaked texts.

Keep the Files

After a suit was filed against the administration regarding the leaked information, the worst possible scenario came true for Trump… Judge Boasberg was assigned the case, the same judge who placed an injunction on Trump’s deportation plan.

Trump claimed that Boasberg was cherry-picking Trump’s cases off the pile, but that is nonsense. The cases are randomly assigned, so this was just a bad draw for Trump.

Boasberg then ordered all records related to the conversation on Signal be preserved (it is possible to auto-delete conversations).

American Oversight Interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwa stated, “The public has a right to know how decisions about war and national security are made — and accountability doesn’t disappear just because a message was set to auto-delete.”

This is a Problem

I know Trump supporters in the media are playing this down and making excuses, and the Trump administration is offering a ton of spin, but this has become a real problem for this administration.

Some of the information in that conversation would clearly qualify as classified information, especially the target packages, timing, and equipment being used, so the claim that nothing classified was leaked is just wrong.

Even though the leak was not intentional on Hegseth’s part, there are some legal experts whom I respect that believe if push comes to shove, a case could be made to hit Hegseth under the Espionage Act.

While Republicans have rallied behind Hegseth and Waltz thus far, that could change if enough pressure is applied because we all know, when push comes to shove, politicians are going to save their seat rather than save an individual. I believe heads will roll on this unless Trump can figure out a way to get this under control quickly. To do that, he may have to cut Waltz or Hegseth loose on his own.