Top officials in Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s administration, including Cabinet secretaries, have at times communicated using a system that auto-deletes messages after 24 hours, leaving no record of certain discussions while conducting government business.
Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Banner through the state’s public records law showed dozens of message threads created on the state’s Google Chat platform with the “History is Off” function activated. Selecting this setting automatically and permanently deletes messages 24 hours after they’re sent.
The messages were heavily redacted, but the ones that weren’t indicated that the officials were discussing the federal government shutdown and congressional redistricting, among other state-related topics.
State law requires every “unit of the state government” to have policies spelling out which records need to be saved and which don’t. The Office of the Governor does not have a policy.
Open-government experts and archivists say setting messages to vanish could hinder accountability, dash the public’s right to inspection and keep archivists from reviewing documents for historical value. Apps that rapidly and automatically destroy government records preclude any later assessment about whether they should be disclosed.
“If that’s how you’re conducting business, there is a responsibility inherent in a democracy that those records are being managed and preserved,” said Arian Ravanbakhsh, a specialist in digital records retention policies who is retired from the National Archives and Records Administration.
Moore’s administration, in response to The Banner’s findings, defended its use of self-deleting messages because it’s ”an approved internal messaging feature" and “complies fully with all Maryland records laws and retention policies.”
Later, a spokesperson said the governor’s office is working with the attorney general to create a ”uniform retention policy” across the executive branch.
While the governor’s office characterized the messages as “transitory,” it also said the content of many of the messages merited redaction under public records exemptions.
The messages were redacted because they contained “communications between the Governor’s advisors regarding internal decision making,” the governor’s attorney wrote.
Who has entered the chat?
The Banner requested Google Chat messages over a 24-hour period from a sample of key government officials. The Moore administration’s 456-page response showed common use of vanishing messages among the governor’s top advisers, legal counsel, deputies, communications staff, Cabinet secretaries and top agency officials when discussing and coordinating responses to a host of state matters during the height of the federal government shutdown in October.
The documents included screenshots of timestamped messages between state officials that look like mobile phone text messages.
At the top of most of the chats it says “HISTORY IS OFF” and “Messages sent with history off are deleted after 24 hours.”
It’s not always clear which official initiated a message, but self-deleting messages included those to and from Health Secretary Dr. Meena Seshamani, Commerce Secretary Harry Coker, Information Technology Secretary Katie Olson Savage, General Services Secretary Atif Chaudhry, Acting Budget Secretary Yaakov “Jake” Weissmann, Appointments Secretary Mollie Byron and Special Secretary for Children Carmel Martin.
Other top officials using the self-deleting function included Moore’s chief of staff, Lester Davis; Manny Welsh, principal deputy chief of staff to the governor and chief administrative officer; Communications Director David Turner and Amanda La Forge, the governor’s chief legal counsel.
Those officials largely did not respond to requests for comment, except for Seshamani’s office, which referred questions to the governor’s office.
Some of the chat messages with “history off” discussed government business. Topics included the federal government shutdown, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, an executive order directing state money to food banks, a state health care model, organization of the Maryland Transit Administration and news coverage in outlets including Fox 45 and The Banner.
In one chat, officials shared a letter written by Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, expressing his opposition to redrawing the boundaries of Maryland’s congressional districts — a position counter to Moore’s on a topic of national interest.
A group chat titled “Shutdown: Core Group” discussed the impacts of the federal government shutdown, including the effects on Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
“FYI BWI reports no major staffing issues / delays yet,” Asma Mirza, the state’s chief performance officer, wrote to the group. “they are also putting together a food drive for TSA and FAA workers; they’ll share a blurb tomorrow.” Additional comments from Mirza are redacted.
In a 22-member “Immigration Group,” an unidentifiable official shared a social media post about litigation related to National Guard deployment in Portland, Oregon. The person posted additional information that was redacted.
There are multiple chats from a new employee in the governor’s office following up with officials who had sent her messages one day prior that had been deleted.
In one message, the employee wrote: ”I see that you sent a chat yesterday. I only just got access to this account this morning, so it expired before I saw it."
Under state law, “each unit of state government,” such as state agencies, is required to set records retention schedules that must be filed with the Maryland State Archives and the Department of General Services. Those schedules spell out which types of records need to be preserved long-term, and which ones can be deleted and when.
On its website, state archives’ guidance says that “transitory” records without long-term value can be deleted as long as they do “not impact agency function and are not required to meet legal or fiscal obligations nor to initiate, sustain, evaluate, or provide evidence of decision-making.”
Moore’s office pushed back against The Banner’s reporting, issuing a statement from spokesman Ammar Moussa that said Google Chat is an approved government platform.
“The Administration complies fully with all Maryland records laws and retention policies,” Moussa said.
But the governor’s office seemingly softened its position in a later email saying that its office had “worked to comply” with Maryland records laws.
“As with any modern workplace,” Moussa wrote, “the Governor’s office uses the Google chat feature for transitory, ephemeral communication for the day-to-day functioning of government.” The governor’s office was consulting with the Office of the Attorney General “to create a uniform retention policy across the executive branch to modernize state retention policies,” he wrote.
A spokesperson with the attorney general’s office confirmed that these conversations began “earlier this fall.”
State Archivist Elaine Rice Bachmann said her office is communicating with Moore’s team “to discuss record retention and a plan for future transfer” of documents for preservation.
‘A big red flag’
Records laws err on the side of preservation and disclosure, according to attorneys focused on government transparency. The higher up the ladder a government official is, the more likely it is that their messages will hold future value.
Attorneys and good-governance experts said auto-deleting public records flies in the face of a democratic process and can erode the public’s trust in government.
Executive branch officials setting chat messages to erase carte blanche “is contrary to our system of checks and balances. The legislature passed the public records law in Maryland,” said Omar Noureldin, senior vice president of policy and litigation with Common Cause, a national nonprofit focused on government accountability.
“To claim, just in broad strokes, that auto deletion of government records is just how modern government does business today, seems to me like a bit obtuse,” he said.
Not all records share equal importance. Messages setting up coffee dates will surely be deleted. But there are processes in place to govern when and how, Noureldin said, and the executive branch can work with the lawmakers to change overly broad laws.
“You don’t get to shortcut it because you, as a government official, find it inconvenient,” he added.
Public records laws across the country have not kept pace with changing technology, said Kevin Goldberg, an attorney with 30 years of experience in First Amendment and open-government issues. But lagging law does not excuse the government from its responsibility to disclose what it’s doing.
“You have a legal obligation to be transparent, and so that doesn’t allow you to just put your head in the sand and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t see this coming,’” Goldberg said.
Records retention laws exist to reinforce government accountability and to keep any one individual or groups of individuals from deciding what’s important and what’s not, he said.
He called the widespread use of the “History is Off” function “a big red flag.”
“That tells me they completely want to operate outside the public eye,” he said.
Hogan’s self-deleting messages
This is not the first time that self-deleting messages have been an issue in state government.
In 2021, then-Gov. Larry Hogan and his top aides were found to be using the app Wickr, which has settings to automatically delete messages, including “burn on read.”
Hogan’s lawyers dismissed concerns about the self-deleting messages, saying the governor wasn’t conducting public businesses. But messages obtained by The Washington Post in 2021 showed Hogan and his team discussing coronavirus tests, funding for police, and federal infrastructure aid using Wickr.
The Wickr app included group chats with names such as “Executive Team,” “Front Office,” “Inner Sanctum” and “COVID-19,” according to The Post.
Hogan, a Republican, told reporters that his team’s use of Wickr was “not really much of a big deal” and “pretty common practice.”
But Democratic lawmakers were alarmed and quickly drafted legislation in 2022 that would have clarified state law so that such messages could be preserved as public records. The failed bill would have also declared the governor’s office a “unit of state government” and subject to public records retention laws. Hogan’s team had insisted that his office wasn’t a “unit of state government.” Moore’s office did not say whether they believe the governor’s office is a “unit of state government.”
One of the bill’s lead sponsors, Sen. Clarence Lam, once described the practice of auto-deleting messages as akin to “writing a letter with invisible ink.”
“Even if a public official contends that the use of this app is not subject to the public records statutes, the message is already deleted before the public has an opportunity to contest that argument,” Lam, who represents parts of Howard and Anne Arundel counties, said in 2022.
Lam and the lead House sponsor, Del. Vaughn Stewart, now say they’re pleased the Moore administration is working on policy changes.
Stewart, who represents Montgomery County, said it’s possible that revisions to Maryland law may still be necessary; he wants to see what policy the governor and attorney general come up with.
Until his retirement from the National Archives and Records Administration, Ravanbakhsh led a policy team focused on drafting the federal government’s rules to preserve electronic records.
Having a policy in place protects government employees from deleting key records, he said.
“My position has always been you have to get it right, because you only have one chance to delete it,” he said.
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