How is classified information typically shared and can officials declassify secrets whenever they want? A national security expert explains

Insights from The Conversation

This article was first published by The Conversation and is reprinted under a Creative Commons license.

by Dakota Rudesill

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 27, 2025, ordered top Trump administration officials to preserve records of their messages sent on the messaging app Signal from March 11 to March 15 following a transparency watchdog group’s lawsuit alleging that the officials have violated the Federal Records Act.

This marked the latest development since The Atlantic on March 24 published a Signal chat among Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other national security officials discussing specific plans to attack Houthi militants in Yemen. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief at The Atlantic, was mistakenly included in the chat and wrote about what he saw.

Trump administration officials have shared contrasting accounts about whether they were discussing sensitive war information on Signal – but maintain that they did not share classified inf…