(AFP) – A US judge ordered Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday to preserve messages from a chat group used by top national security officials to discuss plans for an attack on Yemen’s Huthi rebels. The ruling adds to the pressure on the White House after the Atlantic magazine revealed that its editor had been accidentally added to the group on the commercially-available Signal app. Republican Trump has dismissed the scandal as a “witch-hunt” while attacking the Atlantic and its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who broke the story earlier this week.
District Judge James Boasberg — who has already incurred Trump’s wrath after ruling against the administration in a separate migration case — said he would order the government to “preserve all Signal communication between March 11 and March 15.” He also ordered the government to file details by Monday showing the steps it had taken to preserve the messages. The dates cover the period between when National Security Advisor Mike Waltz set up the chat — and mistakenly added Goldberg — and the day of deadly US airstrikes on the Iran-backed Huthis.
The Atlantic said that Waltz had set some of the Signal messages to disappear after one week, and others after four. “That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law,” Goldberg wrote. The magazine published the full chat on Wednesday, including sensational messages in which Hegseth revealed the timings of strikes hours before they happened and details of planes and missiles used. Waltz sent real-time intelligence on the aftermath of an attack, writing that US forces had identified the target “walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”
Trump has largely pinned the blame on Waltz — saying he had admitted he was “responsible” — while denying that any classified material was shared in the group. But he has also dismissed calls by Democrats for top officials to resign and insisted instead on what he called the success of the raids on the Yemeni rebels.
Trump had also launched a fresh attack on Boasberg the night before the latest ruling, saying it was “disgraceful” that he was dealing with the Signal case and calling the judge “highly conflicted.” The president earlier this month called for Boasberg to be impeached after the judge barred the administration’s use of an obscure wartime law to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
Pressure continues to mount on the White House over “Signalgate,” however. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a bipartisan call on Thursday for a Pentagon watchdog to probe the claims in the Atlantic. “If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information,” said a letter from Republican committee chair Roger Wicker and ranking Democrat Jack Reed. Democrats have claimed that the lives of US service members could have been put at risk by the breach, and the row has raised serious questions about potential intelligence risks.
Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the prospect of a watchdog investigation “doesn’t bother me.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that “we have never denied that this was a mistake” and insisted that Waltz had taken “responsibility.”
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday that the breach was unlikely to face a criminal investigation. “It was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released, and what we should be talking about is that it was a very successful mission,” Bondi told a news conference. Washington has vowed to use overwhelming force against the Huthis until they stop firing on vessels in the key shipping routes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, with the rebels threatening to resume attacks in protest over the Gaza war. The Huthis said Thursday they had targeted an Israeli airport and army site as well as a US warship, soon after Israel reported intercepting missiles launched from Yemen.
– Danny Kemp and Ulysse Bellier
© 2024 AFP
