A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to preserve all Signal communications over the span of several days as a lawsuit proceeds following revelations that officials discussed a military strike in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app — and unintentionally included a jo urnalist.   U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who was randomly assigned to the case but has drawn President Trump's ire overseeing another lawsuit, called his decision a “compromise order,” since the administration had said it would preserve any messages agencies find.  “We are still in the process of working with the agencies to determine what records they have, but we are also working with the agencies to preserve whatever records they have,” Justice Department trial attorney Amber Richer told the judge.  The ruling orders five Trump officials who participated in the group chat that discussed a strike on the Houthis in Yemen — and unintentionally included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic — to “promptly make best efforts” to preserve all Signal messages from March 11 to 15. Goldberg revealed some details from the group chat, which included more than a dozen top officials like Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in his publication Monday. Days later, after administration officials rejected the notion that the material was classified, he published the actual message chain in another story.   Hegseth in the messages shared details of an imminent U.S. attack against Houthi rebels in Yemen, including specific information about weapons and the timing of the attack. National security adviser Mike Waltz apparently invited Goldberg to the group. American Oversight, a group that regularly files records lawsuits against the federal government, claims the group chat violated the Federal Records Act.   “This order marks an important step toward accountability,” Chioma Chukwu, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “We are grateful for the judge's ruling to halt any further destruction of these critical records. The public has a right to know how decisions about war and national security are made — and accountability doesn’t disappear just because a message was set to auto-delete.” Boasberg, an appointee of former President Obama, convened Thursday’s hearing after the group demanded a temporary restraining order immediately ordering the messages be preserved as the litigation continues.  The judge began the hearing by walking through the court’s random assignment process for assigning judges to new lawsuits.   He did not name Trump, but Boasberg’s explanation came after the president without evidence contested the randomness of the system. Trump has repeatedly chastised Boasberg in recent days after he was randomly assigned to a high-profile lawsuit challenging the administration’s deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act.  “I've come to understand that some questions have been raised regarding this Court's random assignment system,” the judge said. “So given the public interest that's involved in cases that have been filed in this court, I thought it might be useful to briefly explain it on the record." Boasberg went on to explain that all judges are randomly assigned cases in order for them to be relatively spread out evenly across multiple categories such as antitrust, federal records acts and employment matters. “That’s how it works, and that’s how all cases continue to be assigned in this court,” he said. At one point during the hearing, the judge appeared to take aim at the government’s assertion in that case that only Boasberg’s written order is binding, not his verbal one from the bench.  “Don’t worry, it’ll be in writing,” Boasberg said just before issuing his ruling.  Updated at 5:24 p.m. EDT ...read more read less