Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to investigate Trump administration officials’ use of Signal and other third-party messaging applications.
Schiff, a frequent critic of President Trump, urged NARA to make sure the messages sent over the encrypted messaging app by Trump officials are preserved and warned that, apart from national security concerns, utilizing Signal “creates profound risk of non-compliance with document preservation.”
“I write to request that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) take immediate action to preserve records and pursue remedial measures in connection with the use of Signal and other commercial messaging applications and email by Trump Administration Officials,” Schiff wrote in a four-page Monday letter.
“It is imperative that NARA contact each federal agency with personnel involved in the Signal conversations to ensure that all records have been preserved,” the first-term California senator said in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is the acting archivist of the U.S.
“NARA must exercise its authority to investigate whether each of the individuals included in the groups forwarded the entirety of the Signal exchange to their official government accounts and preserved the records prior to their auto-deletion, as is required by law for recordkeeping purposes,” the Democrat lawmaker added.
The Hill has reached out to NARA for comment.
The letter came just a day after The New York Times detailed that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared information about March strikes against Houthis in Yemen in a Signal chat that included his wife, personal lawyer and brother.
Trump and other MAGA allies stood in Hegseth’s defense on Monday, and the Defense chief criticized the media when asked about The Times’s report.
“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth told reporters.
Hegseth also shared information about the forthcoming attack plans versus the Houthi rebels in a Signal chat with top Trump administration officials. The revelation came after national security adviser Mike Waltz inadvertently added The Atlantic’s top editor, who subsequently published two articles about the development last month.
Earlier this month, the Defense Department’s (DOD) acting inspector general Steven Stebbins, launched a probe into Hegseth’s use of Signal, looking into whether he “complied with DOD policies” regarding the thread that had more than a dozen top Trump officials.
Schiff warned in the letter that in “addition to the national security risks, the use of messaging applications like Signal creates profound risk of non-compliance with document preservation requirements because they allow users to create settings to automatically delete messages.”
“I urge NARA to immediately begin a thorough investigation into the existence of all Signal, Gmail, and commercial messaging-related communications involving cabinet members and other senior officials and whether records have been adequately preserved,” the senator wrote.
“As part of this investigation, NARA should review whether there are appropriate policies, practices, and procedures at each agency with respect to the lawful utilization of Signal and other commercial messaging services,” Schiff continued.
