Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been instructed to consider every text on her government phone as potential evidence. The Trump administration has reportedly sent out a formal preservation notice while getting ready for a legal battle over missing messages and possible violations of federal record laws.
The warning appeared in an eight-page joint status report filed on Friday by the Department of Homeland Security and the watchdog group American Oversight. The filing notified a federal judge that DHS had told some senior officials to keep “documents and electronic records” related to the lawsuit.
American Oversight filed a lawsuit in October. The case focuses on the group’s effort to get text messages from Noem and other high-ranking Trump officials. The conflict began when DHS told the group that it no longer keeps text message data generated after April 9, 2025.
This led to questions about whether the agency had violated the Federal Records Act. The texts involved relate to significant DHS actions, including deportation operations and National Guard decisions, which is why preserving the evidence is of great importance for the courts.
We filed suit after DHS told us it no longer maintained top officials’ text records. This week, we revealed the agency has now told officials to preserve records that “relate to the subject matter” of our case.https://t.co/FGK2FhQ9a7
— American Oversight (@weareoversight) November 23, 2025
Adding to the tension is the fact that DHS has already had to walk back earlier claims. Earlier this month, the agency admitted that “technology changes” had caused a “misunderstanding” and resulted in “erroneous information” being given to American Oversight about how senior officials’ messages were stored. That admission followed the discovery that DHS had disabled a third party archiving tool in April, a tool that previously captured SMS, Signal, and WhatsApp messages from high level officials. After the switch, the agency relied on manual preservation—an honor system that watchdogs immediately flagged as risky.
American Oversight said the new preservation notice was overdue. Its executive director, Chioma Chukwu, said the messages could shed light on decisions that affected real families, sometimes in life altering ways. For the group, the question is not just whether messages exist, but why DHS suggested they didn’t, and how many might have slipped through the cracks.
The government’s filing does not promise that every requested record still exists. It notes only that devices belonging to the named officials have now been imaged and that copies of those images are being held on a secure system while the litigation moves forward. For now, DHS is telling its officials not to delete anything connected to the case and to let the court battle play out.
As the head of an agency that frequently asks for transparency and documentation from others, Noem is now in the middle of a dispute about whether DHS followed its own rules regarding something as straightforward as keeping official communications. For Trump’s team, the controversy highlights a growing legal risk posed by the digital records left by senior officials.
American Oversight has made clear it plans to keep pushing until DHS either produces the records or acknowledges they were lost. Either outcome carries legal and political consequences.
