Staff in the Department of Government of Efficiency were reminded to preserve all communications related to government activity, including messages on Signal, in a memo this week, after Trump administration cabinet members spoke about a United States military operation in a group chat with a journalist.
The memo, sent on Tuesday, told staffers to “capture and transmit” work-related messages that have been exchanged on personal devices, “whether via text, Signal, a personal email address, or otherwise” to comply with the Presidential Records Act.
Messages about work exchanged on personal devices should be captured via screenshot and forwarded to work devices, the memo said.
The memo also advised staff to disable auto-delete features on messaging services to better comply with the requirements.
It was sent just one day after The Atlantic revealed its editor-in-chief had been inadvertently added to a Signal group chat by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, where he and other cabinet members, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, discussed a military operation in Yemen.
The memo was revealed in an ongoing lawsuit between the group American Oversight, which is also suing Trump administration officials in the Signal group chat, and DOGE.
American Oversight asked a judge to compel DOGE and its unofficial leader, billionaire Elon Musk, to preserve all work-related communications. However, lawyers for the government said it was redundant because they already comply with federal laws on preserving communications.
“USDS employees have been instructed, including as recently as two days ago, to preserve all work-related records and communications regardless of format, including communications exchanged on messaging platforms such as Signal,” lawyers wrote in the filing on Thursday.
Lawyers added that there was no reason to believe employees at DOGE had deleted messages to begin with.
Under the Presidential Records Act, the administration is required to take steps to ensure that “activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies” that reflect the president’s duties are “adequately documented” to be preserved and maintained.
It also prohibits employees from using non-official accounts to exchange messages or records unless an official account is copied on the transmission or forwarded to an official account.
The recent controversy over the use of a Signal group chat to exchange messages has highlighted potential national security breach concerns in the Trump administration. However, the White House asserted that no classified information was exchanged in the group chat and that employees are permitted to use it.
