2,044 events on record Subscribe September 10, 2026
Standing Record home The Standing Record A non-partisan record of US democratic norms —
and the events that erode them.

FOIA showed Rubio, Hegseth, Caine, Vance and Lutnick kept using auto-deleting Signal chats after Trump's Signalgate warning

A State Department FOIA release obtained through Democracy Forward's litigation revealed 13 previously undisclosed Signal group chats used by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine, Vice President JD Vance, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for government business, configured with auto-delete timers as short as eight hours. The chats ran from April through June 2025, after President Trump's April 24, 2025 public acknowledgment that officials should stop using Signal following the original Signalgate incident.

Part of: Signalgate and the Absence of Accountability

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On June 30, 2026, a State Department FOIA release obtained through Democracy Forward's litigation (Democracy Forward Foundation v. U.S. Department of Justice, D.D.C., filed September 2, 2025) revealed 13 previously undisclosed Signal group chats used by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine, Vice President JD Vance, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for government business, including chats labeled "Iran/Ukraine Planning" and coordination between the State Department and USAID. The chats were configured with "Disappearing Messages" timers as short as eight hours — a chat administered by Caine that included Hegseth and Rubio — and up to one week, for a 17-person chat that included Hegseth, Vance, and Lutnick. The chats ran from at least April through June 2025, after President Trump's April 24, 2025 public acknowledgment, following the original Signalgate incident, that officials should stop using Signal.

Rubio held a second, specific role during this period: he served concurrently as Acting Archivist of the United States, the official responsible for enforcing the Federal Records Act. The State Department had told the press in July 2025 that "Secretary Rubio does not use the auto-delete functions" in messaging applications — a claim the FOIA-obtained screenshots directly contradict. Democracy Forward CEO Skye Perryman said the pattern reflects "likely violations" of the Federal Records Act and called on the National Archives to open an enforcement action.

Why we recorded this

Federal law requires officials to preserve records of official business, and the Acting Archivist of the United States bears a specific, non-discretionary duty to enforce that requirement. This disclosure shows the officials responsible for federal recordkeeping used auto-deleting chats for foreign-policy and military planning even after the President publicly acknowledged the earlier "Signalgate" breach, and after the State Department told reporters an auto-delete claim was false. The public has a right to know whether the officials who set records policy are exempting themselves from it.

Sources

  1. FOIA shows cabinet officials didn't learn their lesson from Signalgate — Freedom of the Press Foundation primary accessed July 9, 2026
  2. The Trump Administration Just Can't Quit Signal — The New York Times (syndicated via DNYUZ) investigative accessed July 9, 2026
  3. Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio Stayed on Signal Chats, Records Show, Despite Trump Warning — Mediaite secondary accessed July 9, 2026
  4. Democracy Forward Secures Preservation of Key National Security Records — Democracy Forward secondary accessed July 9, 2026

See also