Trump Group says it's "no coincidence" Denver mayor, staff used self-deleting app for communications about migrants
America First Legal, a conservative legal group closely tied to the Trump administration, said Monday it was "no coincidence" that a CBS News Colorado investigation found Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and his staff began communicating on Signal -- an end-to-end encryption app that can automatically delete messages -- just three weeks after the legal group filed open records requests with Johnston and the city over Denver's handling of the migrant crisis.
In a written statement Monday, AFL reacted to the CBS investigation saying, "It's no coincidence that Mayor Johnston and his team took steps to make their communications on the illegal alien crisis harder to access just weeks after AFL launched an investigation to obtain those very records and communications."
The CBS investigation reported last week that Johnston and 14 of his top advisors, appointees, and lawyers, nicknamed themselves "Strike Force" and communicated about the cities' migrant crisis through the Signal app, which then proceeded to automatically delete their initial conversations. A spokesperson for Johnston said the Signal messaging was prompted by President Trump and how his administration "could have significant impacts on how Denver operates."
In the new statement, America First Legal said it was "committed to exposing the city's role in facilitating this public safety crisis and holding those responsible accountable."
The use of such messaging apps by government officials has been controversial and viewed as a way to avoid public disclosure of government decision-making. In Michigan, after state police leaders were found in 2021 to be using Signal on state-issued phones, state lawmakers outlawed the use of encrypted messaging on state phones.
"It's unlawful and it's breaking the law," said Steven Zansberg, a Denver attorney who specializes in First Amendment and open records law, and reviewed some of the records obtained by CBS News Colorado. The Mayor's office has indicated it believes it did nothing illegal by auto-deleting conversations and does not believe it violated data retention guidelines.
Jeff Roberts, director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, characterized what the CBS investigation found as an intentional effort to undermine Colorado's open records law. "This is not transparent", said Roberts.
According to Mayor Johnston's daily calendar, obtained through an open records request, on Jan. 14, 2025, he convened a 'Strike Force Introduction" meeting. The following day, text messages obtained by CBS News Colorado via an open records request, show Johnston's director of strategic initiatives, Joshua Posner, sent an identical text message to multiple members of the administration saying, "We are going to use Signal to communicate with Strike Force so that communication remains encrypted and secure(and messages auto delete)."
He sent the staff members a link to download Signal saying. once that was done, "I can add you to the group."
Signal is a messaging app that encrypts communications and also automatically deletes messages after a specified amount of time ranging from 30 seconds to four weeks. The city has confirmed that Johnston's "Strike Force" group was auto-deleting their initial internal messages. A spokesperson for Mayor Johnston said that from Jan. 15 to Jan. 24, communications between Johnston staff members about Denver's migrant response were automatically deleted. On Jan. 24, the Signal setting was changed to retain messages for four weeks, then have them deleted. On Jan. 29, the Mayor's Office said it disabled the message deletion function entirely.
In a written statement, Jordan Fuja, a spokesperson for the mayor, said the move to Signal was because, "When President Trump took office in January, it was clear that there would be rapidly developing changes to the way the federal government interacts with cities that could have significant impacts on how Denver operates. The particular group was started in January for internal staff to easily keep track of and share information regarding federal actions that impact Denver under the new administration."
Roberts said the internal text messages and move to Signal show "they are giving the impression that we are doing something we don't want the public to see. The city is saying at the get-go, these are records the public should never see." He suggested the Johnston administration was intentionally "concealing, hiding."
Zansberg, who specializes in open records issues, said what was done was "unlawful and breaking the law and it deprives us of the rights we have as Coloradans to observe the conduct of public business."
America First Legal suggested in their statement what was done was an "attempt to conceal or cover up." The Mayor's Office has not said why it was decided that messages within the Strike Force group would initially be deleted.
