Signal War Plans Messages Disappear from CIA Director's Phone

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Newsweek

Published Apr 15, 2025 at 3:52 AM EDT | Updated Apr 15, 2025 at 7:19 AM EDT


Signal messages discussing sensitive U.S. military plans were not on CIA director John Ratcliffe's phone when the CIA reviewed them, the CIA's Chief Data Officer has said.

In a court document submitted Monday as part of a lawsuit between nonpartisan watchdog group American Oversight and White House officials, Hurley V. Blankenship said that when the CIA reviewed a sensitive Signal group chat on March 31, days after news broke that a journalist had been erroneously added to it, "substantive messages" were not present and instead the chat showed only its group name and administrative settings. Newsweek contacted Ratcliffe for comment via website form outside of normal office hours on Tuesday.

Why It Matters

Administration officials allegedly discussed U.S. military plans in Yemen on a Signal chat group on March 24 that included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Officials on the chat group faced bipartisan criticism including the lawsuit, which alleged breaches of the Federal Records Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by conducting government business on a platform which erases communications.

Federal Judge James Boasberg, the chief U.S. district judge in Washington, on March 27 ordered Ratcliffe—along with other members of the group chat Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—to preserve all messages from March 11 to 15 in the chat group.

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/signal-war-plans-cia-director-john-ratcliffe-messages-disappear-phone-2059775

[C_U_L8R]

1. Apparently Contempt of Court is a real thing

But I've yet to see it upheld against Trump and his crooks.
It seems a law unenforced is the same as no law at all.

[AleksS]

11. Trumpies wear it like a badge.

"I've ignored 5 court rulings and contempt judgements!"

"Oh yeah? I've ignored 13!"

"Oh yeah? I've got 34 felony convictions and they elected me president!"

[gab13by13]

2. I'm way ahead of Late Breaking News

I knew that the conversations on Signal were going to be deleted because there was a picture of a time stamp.

I assume that Magats are still using personal phones and Signal that self-deletes messages, and that isn't Late Breaking News it's ongoing news.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Back when the Atlantic Editor reported

that he was added to the chat (which was March 24, 2025), it was noted that the chat had been set to "delete after 1 week" and the chat time range had actually already occurred from March 11 - 15, 2025. Meaning unless someone (like the Atlantic Editor) intervened with screenshots, the messages would have mostly been gone by the time the judge got around to the order to preserve (which was March 27, 2025).

[stopdiggin]

8. this is/was my understanding

which means that the article is only telling us what we already knew. The judge's order was relatively meaningless in the face of files that were already gone at the time of the ruling. ( with the exception of - possibly - some kind of third party forensic retrieval. which, unfortunately, was not part of the judge's directive. )

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Peter Graves' stuff for sure!

Nothing like the original!!!

(I still haven't seen any of Tom Cruise's versions of that )

[neohippie]

4. Thats by design

The Signal App usage approved by the White House was part of Project 2025 they planned to use non-governmental chat apps like Signal for that very reason so as to get around archiving laws like The Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act on purpose so that they could claim that there are no preserved records to have to turn over when Freedom of Information Act requests come in from the media or any investigatory bodies.

They clearly are showing premeditated intentions to violate the laws and will continue to violate those laws because this is the most lawless administration in our nations history and they have no intent to change any of that. They believe that the Executive has the only authority and that they are not bound by anything such as following spending appropriations by Congress, or interpreting the laws based on courts only Trump can decide how to interpret laws or how money can be spent

[ToxMarz]

7. You can preserve the messages in Signal, to have them automatically delete is just an option

And if they were set to automatically delete, the option could have been changed when the Judge ordered it and before they disappeared.

But they will use the "luddite" defense.

"I don't know how this works?!"

Which, if it was true, would be the first clue they are to dumb to be using it for this purpose.

[Owens]

5. So much for the party of "law and order"

[republianmushroom]

6. Lock him up, lock him up.

[moniss]

9. Imagine that. Such a shocking, unexpected occurence and

I'll put that right by the file of Condolezza Rice saying "No one could have known."