'A Serious Violation': FBI Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist for Classified Documents
"This is a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press," said one First Amendment advocate.
A press freedom group on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of a "disturbing escalation" in its "war on the First Amendment" after the FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post journalist who has extensively covered President Donald Trump's attempts to gut the federal workforce.
FBI agents reportedly conducted a search early Wednesday morning at the Virginia home of Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a federal contractor who is accused of illegally retaining classified documents.
"If true, this would be a serious violation of press freedom," said the Freedom of the Press Foundation in a social media post.
The Post reported that the agents seized Natanson's cellphone, Garmin watch, a personal laptop, and a laptop issued by the newspaper.
The warrant stated that the FBI was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator with top secret security clearance who has been accused of taking classified intelligence reports to his home in Maryland. The documents were found in his lunch box and basement, an FBI affidavit said.
Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney noted that the criminal complaint regarding Perez-Lugones' case does not mention allegations that he gave any classified documents to a reporter.
"The FBI's search and seizure of a journalist's personal and professional devices appears to be a serious violation of press freedom and underscores why we need to enact greater federal protections for both journalists and their sources," said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America. "Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the seizure is linked to an investigation into a federal contractor who is alleged to have leaked classified information. It's worth reiterating, though we shouldn't have to, that journalists have a constitutionally protected right to publish government secrets. We call for the FBI to immediately return Hannah Natanson's devices."
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told the New York Times that the FBI search at Natanson's home was "intensely concerning" and could chill "legitimate journalistic activity."
“There are important limits on the government’s authority to carry out searches that implicate First Amendment activity,” Jaffer said.
As the Committee to Protect Journalists notes in a guide to reporters' legal rights, the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 established high standards for searches and seizures of journalists' materials that are "reasonably believed to be related to media intended for dissemination to the public—including 'work product materials' (e.g., notes or voice memos containing mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, etc. of the person who prepared such materials) and 'documentary materials' (e.g., video tapes, audio tapes, photographs, and anything else physically documenting an event)."
"These materials generally cannot be searched or seized unless they are reasonably believed to relate to a crime committed by the person possessing the materials," reads the guide. "They may, however, be held for custodial storage incident to an arrest of the journalist possessing the materials, so long as the material is not searched and is returned to the arrestee intact."
Last year, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) ended a Biden-era policy that limited its ability to search or subpoena a reporter's data as part of investigations into leaks.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ "will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”
Before becoming FBI director, Kash Patel said in 2023 that should Trump return to the White House, his administration would "come after people in the media" in efforts to target the president's enemies.
The Post reported Wednesday that "while it is not unusual for FBI agents to conduct leak investigations around reporters who publish sensitive government information, it is highly unusual and aggressive for law enforcement to conduct a search on a reporter’s home."
Natanson has spent much of Trump's second term thus far covering his efforts to fire federal employees, tens of thousands of whom have been dismissed as the president seeks to ensure the entire government workforce is pushing forward his right-wing agenda.
She wrote an essay last month for the Post in which she described being inundated with messages over the past year from more than 1,000 federal employees who wanted to tell her "how President Donald Trump was rewriting their workplace policies, firing their colleagues, or transforming their agency’s missions." She has written about the toll the mass firings have had on workers' mental health.
Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement that "physical searches of reporters’ devices, homes, and belongings are some of the most invasive investigative steps law enforcement can take."
"There are specific federal laws and policies at the Department of Justice that are meant to limit searches to the most extreme cases because they endanger confidential sources far beyond just one investigation and impair public interest reporting in general," said Brown. "While we won’t know the government’s arguments about overcoming these very steep hurdles until the affidavit is made public, this is a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press.”
