Former DHS Aide 'Should Have Known Better,' Judge Says After Signal Messages Vanished in FEMA Suit

A federal judge has found that former Homeland Security officials failed to preserve Signal messages relevant to a lawsuit over plans to cut the Federal Emergency Management Agency's workforce, ruling that the court will presume the lost communications were unfavourable to the defendants.

US District Judge Susan Illston found that former acting FEMA leader Karen Evans acted with 'intent to deprive' plaintiffs of evidence after shortening an auto-delete setting on a Signal chat while litigation was active. Illston said Evans 'should have known better' because she previously served as chief information officer at the Department of Homeland Security, where she was responsible for records-preservation policies.

The 11 September ruling is a civil discovery decision, not a criminal finding. But it could affect how the court evaluates the government's account of a disputed plan to reduce FEMA staffing.

How the Signal Messages Disappeared

The deleted messages concerned FEMA staffing, including the agency's Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery, or CORE, employees. Officials used Signal on personal phones to discuss matters relevant to the litigation, and the court found that messages from the key period could not be restored or replaced.

Evans created a Signal group called 'FEMA 2.0' with former DHS deputy chief of staff Joseph Guy and senior DHS adviser Kara Voorhies. The chat initially used a four-week auto-delete setting.

On 11 March 2026, after Evans had been named as a defendant and while discovery was under way, she shortened the FEMA 2.0 auto-delete timer from four weeks to one week. The court noted that a DHS chief information officer had sent employees a preservation reminder the previous day.

Evans created a backup of her Signal messages on 25 April. But the judge noted that the backup came after relevant messages had already disappeared and that Evans did not disclose the backup in a declaration filed on 29 April.

The court concluded, under a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, that FEMA 2.0 messages were deleted and were relevant to the plaintiffs' claims.

Why Evans Faced an Adverse Inference

Illston found that Evans's conduct went beyond negligence or gross negligence. The court said the timing of the deletions, her continued use of auto-delete and other evidence supported a finding that she intentionally deleted relevant messages with the purpose of depriving plaintiffs of their use in the litigation.

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e)(2), the court ordered that the lost information be presumed unfavourable to the defendants. The remedy does not mean the judge knows exactly what the missing messages said. Instead, it allows the court to treat the lost evidence as adverse to the defendants when assessing the case.

The court also ruled that plaintiffs are entitled to attorneys' fees and costs incurred in uncovering and addressing the loss of evidence. The parties were ordered to meet and confer over the amount, with a fee application due by 9 October if they cannot agree.

Guy's Case Was Different

Guy also failed to preserve Signal messages. The court said he had at least 26 FEMA-related Signal chats on his personal phone.

While under court orders to produce relevant messages from his phone, Guy reinstalled Signal on 30 April, resulting in the deletion of the content of his Signal chats. He also missed a deadline to file a court-ordered declaration concerning preservation and later said none of his relevant chats had been saved.

Illston described the timing as 'highly suspect' and said Guy's explanation was not believable. But the court did not find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Guy deleted the messages with the intent to deprive plaintiffs of their use in the litigation.

That distinction is important: the court's specific finding of intentional deletion under Rule 37(e)(2) concerned Evans, not Guy.

FEMA Cuts Also Ruled Unlawful

The Signal dispute forms part of a wider lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's handling of FEMA staffing.

In a separate 11 September ruling, Illston found that DHS unlawfully interfered with FEMA's authority over staffing and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in directing the agency to produce a plan for a 50 per cent workforce reduction. She wrote that the proposed staffing figure appeared to have been 'pulled from thin air'.

The court's ruling did not establish that the missing Signal messages contained proof of unlawful conduct. Instead, it found that the messages should have been preserved, that relevant material was lost and that the loss warranted an adverse inference against the defendants.

The messages cannot be recovered. But the court will now presume they were unfavourable to the defendants as the case proceeds.