Democrat Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and his team had secret communication about the sanctuary immigration crisis using signal, a messaging application with the capabilities of a car.
KCNC-TV The scandal was revealed in a report Thursday, explaining that the mayor and 14 senior advisers, appointees and lawyers will create a “Strike Force” group on the application, and hold sensitive discussions that are accessible to the public through open record requests. Instead, end-to-end encryption software and its auto-deletion feature hidden communications.
“Give the impression that we are doing things that the public doesn't want to see.”
Joshua Posner, director of the mayor's strategic initiative, sent a text message to several admin members on Jan. 15 to direct them to move conversations about immigration to the signal, KCNC reported.
Posner writes, “We use signals to communicate with the Strike Force, and the communication remains encrypted and secure (and automatically deletes messages).)
He explained to the mayor's team how to download the application to a mobile phone.
Denver's lawyer Stephen Zansberg told KCNC that the mayor and his administration's actions were “illegal.”
“We will take us out of the rights we have as Coloradan to observe the implementation of public works,” he said, calling the three-year “a standard record keeping requirement.”
“It seems like a rather simple, simple, intentional effort to avoid transparency,” Zansberg concluded.
Jeff Roberts, director of the Colorado Free Information Coalition, argued that the move undermines the state's public records laws.
“This isn't transparent,” Roberts told the news outlet. “They give the impression that we are doing things that the public doesn't want to see. The cities say, “These are records that the public never sees.” ”
When confronted about the messaging scandal, Johnston's office denounced President Donald Trump's administration.
“When President Trump took office in January, it was clear that changes in the way the federal government interacted with cities that could have a major impact on the way Denver operates were rapidly evolving,” Mayor's spokesman Jordan Fuja told KCNC.
Fuja argued that “the city's retention schedule does not require city employees to retain email messages.”
KCNC reported that the city has confirmed that signal messages were set to auto-delete from January 15th to January 29th, and that the feature has since been disabled.
The decision to move communications to signals comes weeks after America's first law required Johnston's administration to take over communications related to immigration issues.
The AFL has requested “all records, including correspondences, calendar entries and documents that refer to or belong to Mayor Mike Johnston since November 1, 2024.”
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