Oversight Democrats Demand Investigation Into Trump Official’s Purposeful Deletion of Federal Records in Signal Chat, A Violation of Federal Law

Washington, D.C. (April 2, 2025)— Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent letters to Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard requesting documents and information regarding the Trump Administration officials’ violation of federal law by failing to preserve the communications exchanged in the now-infamous March 15, 2025, Signal chat that included likely classified national security information.  

Today’s letters bolster Oversight Democrats’ investigation into this wrongdoing and follow a letter sent last night to National Security Advisor Michael Waltz just hours after it was reported that he and other NSC members and staff were using personal Gmail accounts to conduct official government business. In the letters to Waltz and other agency heads, Ranking Member Connolly requests that they and their staffs “immediately cease further use of unauthorized messaging and email applications and platforms for government business and immediately comply with all relevant federal records and national security laws to reassure the American public that the Administration is not using unofficial and insecure communications platforms to cover up wrongdoing or illegal behavior, obscure government business and records, or expose classified information.”

In addition, the Ranking Member writes: “I am deeply concerned that violations of federal law may have occurred if there was a failure to preserve federal records and a failure to report the unlawful destruction of these records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as required by law,” wrote Ranking Member Connolly. 
“The Federal Records Act (FRA) imposes preservation and disposition requirements for federal agencies.  Congress enacted the FRA to ensure that all official business of the federal government, including classified information, is properly preserved and accessible to the public.  If Signal messages were not preserved in violation of the FRA, you are required to report the violation to NARA.”

Ranking Member Connolly also sent a letter to the dual-hatted U.S. Secretary of State and Acting Archivist of the United States, Marco Rubio, demanding the State Department immediately preserve all federal records created in Signal on Secretary Rubio’s personal and work phones, including discussions on the March 15, 2025 military operation in Yemen.  Since none of the agency principals involved in the “Houthi PC small group” chat recovered the messages involved in the chat after setting their conversations to auto delete, Ranking Member Connolly is also requesting Rubio, in his capacity as Acting Archivist, investigate this failure to preserve federal records.  

“In order to investigate likely violations of federal law and address your unavoidable conflict of interest, I request that you, as acting archivist of the United States, initiate an independent investigation of this incident and any other systemic failures to preserve federal and presidential records and recuse yourself from said investigation,” wrote Ranking Member Connolly to Secretary Rubio.   

According to reporting, the messages in the Signal group chat were set to be deleted after one and four weeks.  Further reports indicate there were two contacts present in the “Houthi PC small group” chat with the initials “MAR” begging the question of whether Rubio participated in the chat on at least one personal phone.  

In his letter, Ranking Member Connolly underscores that federal law prohibits the arbitrary destruction of federal records as well as the use by executive branch employees of non-official electronic messaging accounts to conduct business unless a complete copy of the electronic messages is copied or forwarded to an official account within twenty days.  

Since the first reports of the use of Signal by the Trump Administration’s highest-ranking national security officials to discuss highly sensitive, likely classified plans in a manner that endangers the lives of servicemembers and skirts federal records laws and national security protocols, Committee Democrats have launched a multifront investigation into this gross negligence: 

• On March 25, 2025, Ranking Member Connolly and Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost sent a letter to several members of the National Security Council and White House Cabinet members involved in the group chat advising them to preserve records in accordance with the law as Committee Democrats launched an investigation into this catastrophic and confounding security breach.
• On March 26, 2025, Committee Democrats sent a letter to the above-mentioned Signal chat participants demanding an immediate briefing on how and why America’s national security secrets ended up in a group chat on an unauthorized messaging app that included a journalist.
• On March 27, 2025, Ranking Member Connolly sent a letter to inspectors general at the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Treasury, and Central Intelligence Agency, and to Counsel to the President David Warrington demanding a multifront investigation into the exposure of likely classified information in the unsecure Signal chat.
• That same day, the Members urged Chairman Comer to schedule a hearing on the reckless, unauthorized disclosure of unclassified information.
• On April 1, 2025, Ranking Member Connolly sent a letter to National Security Advisor Michael Waltz demanding he and his staff immediately stop their use of unauthorized and insecure messaging and email applications and platforms for government business, turn over documents, and report additional failures to follow federal laws after reports surfaced that he was using his personal Gmail account to conduct sensitive and potentially classified work.  

Click here to read the letters to Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of State and Acting Archivist of the United States Marco Rubio. 

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