People don’t use Signal for official business. The federal government is required to keep records of how it operates, which Signal is not compliant with (deletion), and classified material is not allowed on unapproved systems. Most people take that seriously because it is a career-ending offense for a merit-hire which would effectively end their ability to get any job with the government or a contractor which requires a background check.
Your premise is incorrect. Laws allow use of these types of apps. Excerpt from FactCheck article
“ According to the National Archives and Records Administration: “Agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that Federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency recordkeeping system.” Guidance from NARA in 2015 stated, “Employees create Federal records when they conduct agency business using personal electronic messaging accounts or devices. This is the case whether or not agencies allow employees to use personal accounts or devices to conduct agency business. This is true for all Federal employees regardless of status.”
An update of the federal records laws in 2014 allows federal employees “using a non-official electronic messaging account” to provide records of those communications to federal archivists within 20 days. So as Josh Gerstein wrote for Politico on March 25, “That means the officials involved in these discussions on Signal still have time to comply since these messages came about 10 days ago.””
First, you really want to read the link you posted because it highlights that there’s more to it than NARA’s general guidance for the entire federal government, including specific laws for defense information. That’s presumably why it quotes people saying that they think it’s illegal but avoids making a definitive statement.
Even if that defense-specific law is determined not to apply, as that article explains this is still at least borderline illegal. It links to the relevant law:
> (Sec. 10) Prohibits an officer or employee of an executive agency from creating or sending a record using a non-official electronic messaging account unless such officer or employee: (1) copies an official electronic messaging account of the officer or employee in the original creation or transmission of the record, or (2) forwards a complete copy of the record to an official electronic messaging account of the officer or employee not later than 20 days after the original creation or transmission of the record. Provides for disciplinary action against an agency officer or employee for an intentional violation of such prohibition.
I haven’t seen even his most devoted defenders claim that he officially set up a process to archive all of their Signal messages at all, and the fact that the chats were set up to delete messages after 7 days certainly doesn’t suggest an intention in following it. Moreover, even if they didn’t have messages deleted automatically Signal allows people to manually edit or delete messages so they’d be placed in the difficult position of proving the negative that they hadn’t removed official records.
The law linked says that they must copy the official account at the time of the message, or
they can forward the message to the official account within 20 days. It doesn’t outright ban Signal. What I provided as parameters could have been followed. We don’t know. Someone would have to file a FOIA. The only ramifications are political in nature. Trump could decide to remove him.
Yes, he’s effectively above the law because his boss controls the DOJ and could pardon him. That doesn’t mean that he’s in compliance with the law, only that Republicans consider obeying laws optional if it interferes with their exercise of power.
I don’t agree. George Santos just got convicted and will be serving 7 years for fraud. He is/was Republican.
Not saying any one of them is perfect, just trying to be reasonable that he probably used Signal and maybe still does but it’s not this blazing fire that it’s made out to be.
Plus, the President is the ultimate classification authority. He can make the rules.
Santos isn’t comparable: he was charged under an administration which followed the law, at a time when his vote didn’t affect the balance of power, and he also lied to his fellow Republicans. Based on what we’ve seen so far with a newly-politicized DOJ, it’s debatable whether he’d have the same outcome now or be seen as a very safe vote after being given a deal like Eric Adams to avoid punishment as long as he toes the line.
While it’s true that the president can set policy, there’s no evidence that he’s done so in this case. You’ve made a really concerted effort to try to imagine scenarios where this wouldn’t be a big deal but there’s no evidence that they’re real. For example, if Trump had decreed that personal devices were approved for classified messages, you’d expect that Hegseth would have defended himself by pointing to that memo.
They're definitely not supposed to use signal for official business, especially anything classified. My question is whether people actually so though (not a question I expect answered by the way, from the outside we wouldn't really know).
