Marco Rubio’s Disappearing Signal Chat
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is under scrutiny for his use of disappearing messages on the Signal app, despite previous assurances to a federal court that he was not using such features for official business. Reports suggest he later enabled auto-delete settings in a chat regarding administration matters.
Why it matters
This highlights potential violations of federal record-keeping laws by high-ranking officials and raises concerns about transparency in national security communications.
The State Department told a court last year that the secretary didn’t use disappearing messages. By this spring, it had dropped that claim.
Andrew Harnik / Getty July 14, 2026, 4 PM ET Share Save S ecretary of State Marco Rubio , like most federal officials, is legally required to retain records that he creates as part of his job. So it was no surprise that his office ended up in court last year after The Atlantic revealed that he had participated in an auto-deleting Signal chat about war plans in Yemen with other top national-security officials. In a case involving a Freedom of Information Act request for the Signal records on Rubio’s phone, a federal judge wanted assurances that these documents had been preserved.
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