U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — who has already angered the Trump administration over his rulings on Venezuelan deportees — has been assigned to preside over a lawsuit brought against the administration over the use of Signal in a chat discussing strikes on Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Wednesday morning, Boasberg, the chief judge at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was assigned in the case of American Oversight against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other administration figures, according to a court document shared on X by Politico's Kyle Cheney.
Boasberg has drawn ire from President Donald Trump and his administration for his examination of the use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport accused Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador.
Earlier this month, he ordered that planes carrying the migrants be turned around pending a 14-day examination of the use of the law, but the planes continued onto their destination.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the administration claimed a "state secrets" privilege and refused to give any more information about the deportations.
Republicans moved quickly to impeach Boasberg after Trump attacked him and other "Crooked Judges" in a social media post.
The Signal lawsuit Boasberg will hear was filed by American Oversight, which calls itself nonpartisan but has aimed all its actions at the Republican Party, named Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in its lawsuit.
The action claims that the chat between members of the administration that mistakenly included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, violated federal records laws.
The organization said it wants to "recover unlawfully deleted messages and prevent further destruction," and cites the Federal Records Act, which requires federal officials to preserve communications that are related to official government business.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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