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Yesterday's news was about hearings conducted by Congress about whether there has been a national security breach of epic proportions by the top officials in the Trump administration who used an app called Signal that you can pick up in the App Store to do top secret high level communications about war plans against a Yemeni based group called the Houthis, backed by the Iranians. That was so yesterday. Today, a new lawsuit's been filed in federal court about it against all the participants from the National Intelligence Director to the CIA director, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the head of the Department of Defense, all of it. They've all been sued in their official capacities. And guess what judge got assigned? Judge Jeb Boasberg, the favorite judge of Donald Trump, the one they're continuing to bash left and right because he blocked them on their use of war powers for phony war powers. And the Alien Enemies Act. Deportation of undocumented Venezuelans to a dank, dark death. Producing jails in El Salvador. Boasberg. He's back. So is Popak. You're on Midas touch and legal af. Let's get down to the filing. I got it in my hot little hands right here. What's the basis of the case? It's simple. It's so simple, it is a thing of beauty. It's arguing that the use of the Signal app, they don't even have to touch whether it's classified top secret. Was Pete Hegseth responsible? Was that something that Tulsi Gabbard was responsible for? They don't even have to get into any all that. They just focus on the Federal Records Act. Ah, it's always the Federal Records act that gets you. They always, they always screw you in the drive through. It's the Federal Records act, which requires, as you would expect, that official records and communications among and between departments within departments are properly preserved so that their successors have it, historians have it, the administration have it. Things are done not in secret, ultimately. So if you read the Federal Records act, it says that records are all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristic made or received by a federal agency in connection with a transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency. You got to preserve your data. And the archivist, who apparently I've learned something new today based on the filing or I had forgotten it, Marco Rubio, when he's not busy being the Secretary of State day job or fighting with Elon Musk or shrinking from his responsibilities when Zelensky gets filleted in front of the American people on a visit, he's the acting National Archivist. He's the acting archivist. So weird. Welcome. You screwed this up. So the focus of the lawsuit is again, not on classification. Complicated. It's unsimple. You need to preserve your records. And the Signal app, which you can get from the App Store with slightly better encryption than WhatsApp is, is has auto delete functions. It automatic. And, and because Jeffrey Goldberg, who is the editor in chief of the Atlantic, had been added to the Signal chat. That's, that's the breach by accident, apparently by Mike Waltz, our fearless National Security advisor for Donald Trump, probably fat fingered trying to add JD for JD Vance or JV for JD Vance, and ended up doing JG for Jonathan Goldberg. That's how that happened. Because Goldberg was inside the tent, right? He was a fly on the wall. He saw the auto delete happen. So we have a record of evidence of violation of the Federal Records act because of the use of this auto deleting surreptitious scrambling platform communication platform. I mean, I joked, why don't they just cut out the middleman? Why don't they just use Chinese WeChat? Just use WeChat to communicate. Cut out the middleman. The Chinese are peering in. We know that. Certainly when you're using Signal or as signals CEO, beleaguered CEO had to come out with yesterday. It's the gold standard for private communications. Right, but we're not looking for the gold standard for private communications. We're looking for the platinum Pentagon level encryption standard. And you can't have auto delete functions because that violates the Federal Records Act. So they go through. Let me just read to you from page 5, paragraph 19 of the suit that's been filed in front of Judge Boasberg. To comply with the statute, the agency head shall make and preserve records. Shall make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation related to policies, decisions and procedures and essential transactions of the agency and designed to furnish the information necessary to protect the legal and financial rights of the governments and of persons directly affected by the agency's activities. So they have to have a record management system that has safeguards to prevent loss of records, I.e. deletions on page 6, paragraph 21. When records are handled in a manner that contravenes the Federal Records act or a parallel agency record keeping policy, the FRA obligates the agency head to notify the archivist. So all the people on that chat, from the Department of Defense to the Vice President and all the others, they needed to tell Marco Rubio, who's the archivist, of any actual impending or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, corruption, deletion or erasure or destruction of a document. Document. They were doing it in real time with the archivist on the phone. I love that part. Page seven they go through the facts, paragraph 28 of the complaint upon information and belief from March 11 through March 15 so four full days, senior Trump administration officials, we call them the the Breach Brigade, including all agency head defendants, use the signal messaging application to discuss and coordinate imminent US Military strikes in Yemen. Look, let me tell you, if there's a sure fire way to wake up feeling fresh after a night of drinking, it's with Pre Alcohol zbiotics Pre Alcohol Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. And here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for your rough next day. Pre Alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make Pre Alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. So I first gave Pre Alcohol a try when I was celebrating our relocation and unpacking the last of the 150 moving boxes. I drank it before my first scotch and soda and you wouldn't believe how on top of my game I felt the very next morning. This March Madness. Don't let anything sideline your celebrations. Grab Pre Alcohol before you go out and be ready to cheer on your team all day and night long. Go to ZBiotics.com legal AF to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use legal AF at checkout. ZBiotics is back with a 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zbiotics.com legal AF and use the code legal AF at checkout for 15% off. Yeah, that's the war plans that Pete Hegseth said. No, war plans. Those. Yeah, target packages are not war plans, really. Signal is an open source encrypted messaging service that allows users to send text, audio, video and picture messages to other users. Signal includes a function that allows users to set time limits by which their sent messages will disappear. Remember all Snapchat? It's like Snapchat, but apparently for military strikes upon information and belief. Signal messages, paragraph 31, are stored only on an individual's device with no copy or backup retained on the system or its servers. That's why people use it, because they want their messages to disappear. And once deleted, they can't be recovered. Paragraph 32 on page 8. Reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, well, he's actually the editor in chief of the Atlantic, was inadvertently included on that chain. He was included in highly sensitive, potentially classified information. Although that doesn't really matter here. Goldberg reported in the Atlantic that 18 individuals were listed in the Signal chat, including the acting archivist, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State. Because he's inside, Goldberg was able to see the auto deletion defendant Waltz set at least some messages to disappear after one week and some messages that disappear after four weeks. Paragraph 39, the enable disappearing function on Waltz's messages were was known or reasonably should have been known to all members of the signal chat. Paragraph 40, page 9. Upon information and belief, one or more messages in the Signal chat regarding the transaction of public business sent on March 17 has been deleted. That's not a proper way to use federal records. It violates the Freedom of Information Act. So what they're seeking is an injunction to stop this and to get to bottom of it. Let me just read to you what their prayer for relief is on page 17. They want Judge Boasberg, of all people, the one they've been trying to get rid of, to have reassigned. He's. To paraphrase Donald Trump, he's a lunatic. He's corrupt. Well, lunatic corrupt. Jeff Boasberg is gonna have to decide the following. In his prayer for relief brought by the plaintiffs, declare that the messages and communication sent through a Signal application, our agency records subject to the Federal Records act, declare that the failure to ensure such messages are preserved comprises or consists of an unlawful removal of federal records in violation of the Federal Records Act. Declare that the defendants have violated their respective duties under the Federal Records Act. Issue an emergency injunctive relief and permanent injunction ordering defendants to comply with their respective duties under the Federal Records act and the Administrative Procedures act to preserve all those records. Preserve all those records as part of the injunction and award attorneys fees and costs and any other appropriate remedies. This is going to be a fast moving story, not just from the fact finding standpoint at Congress and the calls for the heads of all of these people to resign, but now the added pressure. It's in the court system and not just any court system, the D.C. district Court and not just any D.C. district Court. Jeb Boasberg, you can hear it now. I'm sure my colleague and partner, Ben Meisellis will have fun doing a lot of hot takes about Donald Trump's afternoon midnight 6am rant against Jeb Boasberg. He's criminal, he's a lunatic, he's corrupt. He's none of those things. We've done a full evaluation of Jeb Boasberg and we know him well. Chief Judge of the D.C. district Court appointed by, by a Republican to be a state court judge or the equivalent appointed by, to be a federal judge appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to be ahead of many national security courts. He is a moderate down the middle, not liberal Democrat and always has been at best, but he's an independent judge. He presided over. Where he got into the thicket with Trump is he presided over aspects of Trump's criminal prosecution, including Mar A Lago and the D.C. election interference case. He didn't like that much. But there's nothing in his record that suggests that he's not a fair and impartial jurist. Yet the Trump administration bashed him mercilessly. From the, from the press secretary standpoint, the, the Attorney General standpoint. Donald Trump in an interview with Laura Ingraham standpoint, It got so bad that the Chief justice of the Supreme Court, who's effectively Boasberg's boss and friend, had to bail him out and say, stop calling for his impeachment. You got a problem with a judge, you appeal, you don't impeach, you appeal, you don't abuse. That was a statement that the Supreme Court had to come out with to protect not only Boasberg, but all the other judges. Yeah, and he's not gonna get impeached. Even though articles of impeachment were drawn up. He's not going anywhere. The D.C. circuit Court is not going to remove him as a judge on these cases. Neither is the United States Supreme Court. He's done nothing wrong. There's nothing in his record. He's the opposite of corrupt. And yet this is what we have with Donald Trump. Because he learned this, he got a taste for this when he was candidate Trump, criminal defendant Trump, convict Trump and how to and how to bash federal courts and judges and state court judges. So this is going to go fast. There's going to be a briefing schedule, a hearing schedule. I think within three to five days I'm going to be reporting back on multiple events that happen here at the intersection of law and politics. So until my next reporting here on the Midas Touch Network and over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel Legal AFMTN. Come on over. Hit the subscribe button. You can see why it's important. I'm Michael Popak and I'm reporting in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. We just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories the intersection of law and Politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AFMTN. That's @legal AFMTN.