The federal judge who will oversee a new lawsuit regarding the misuse of Signal in the Trump administration is the same judge Donald Trump has suggested should be impeached for blocking his ability to employ wartime powers for deporting Venezuelan immigrants. James Boasberg, a district judge in Washington, was appointed on Wednesday to handle a lawsuit claiming that Trump officials violated federal record-keeping laws by using a Signal group chat to discuss imminent military operations against Yemen’s Houthis. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who unintentionally became part of the conversation, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted the scheduled execution time for a Houthi militant in Yemen on March 15, along with information on forthcoming US airstrikes. The use of a commercial messaging app for sharing such highly sensitive information has led to outrage in Washington and demands from Democrats for the dismissal of Trump’s national security team members. The lawsuit, filed by the liberal-leaning watchdog group American Oversight, seeks a court declaration that their actions are against the law and an injunction to compel Hegseth and other Trump administration officials to preserve records and recover any deleted information. The Trump administration has not yet responded to the lawsuit, but maintains that no classified information was shared on Signal, an app they claim is approved for use on government phones. This case was assigned to Boasberg through the court’s routine random assignment process. Boasberg has been at the center of an escalating dispute with the Trump administration which has heightened fears of a possible constitutional crisis if the administration disregards judicial rulings. The dispute reached a new level when Boasberg ordered the Justice Department to explain the administration’s noncompliance with his order, which temporarily blocked the deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. Trump has called for Boasberg’s impeachment over this matter, a stance which led to a rare criticism from the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Roberts, who stated that impeachment is not the proper response to disagreement with judicial decisions, which can be appealed. Republican legislators have also introduced resolutions to impeach Boasberg and other judges who have challenged Trump’s policies, as the White House intensifies its criticism of the judiciary.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/james-boasberg-donald-trump-judge-signal-lawsuit