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UPDATED: The FBI searched the home of a journalist at The Washington Post as part of an investigation into potential disclosure of classified information.
The New York Times first reported on the search of the home of Hannah Natanson, who has been covering the upheaval as the Trump administration has fired federal workers. A Post spokesperson said that the publication is reviewing and monitoring the situation.
The Post reported that investigators told Natanson that she was not the focus of the investigation. The warrant said that the investigation was of Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator who has a security clearance and is accused of retaining classified intelligence reports, according to the Post.
Agents searched the reporter’s home and her devices and seized a phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch, according to the Post.
An FBI spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X, “This past week, at the request of the Department of War, the Department of Justice and FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post journalist who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor. The leaker is currently behind bars. I am proud to work alongside Secretary Hegseth on this effort. The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country.”
Natanson recently wrote of her experiences covering the federal workforce in a story headlined, “I am the Post’s ‘federal government whisperer.’ It’s been brutal.” The story recounted how she had been inundated with tips.
She wrote, “The stories came fast, the tips even faster. I kept worrying: What if I got something wrong? What if I got someone in trouble?”
She added, “After consulting Post lawyers, I developed what we felt was the safest possible sourcing system. If I planned to use someone in a story, I asked them to send me a picture of their government ID, then tried to forget it. I kept notes from reporting conversations in an encrypted drive, never writing down anyone’s name. To Google-check facts and identities, I used a private browser with no search history. I retitled every Signal chat by agency — ‘Transportation Employee,’ ‘FDA Reviewer,’ ‘EPA Scientist’ — until the app, unable to keep up, stopped accepting new nicknames. (Then I started moving contacts into two-person group chats, which I could still rename.)”
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, said in a statement that any “search targeting a journalist warrants intense scrutiny because these kinds of searches can deter and impede reporting that is vital to our democracy.”
“The Justice Department should explain publicly why it believes this search was necessary and legally permissible, and Congress and the courts should scrutinize that explanation carefully,” Jaffer said. “Searches of newsrooms and journalists are hallmarks of illiberal regimes, and we must ensure that these practices are not normalized here.”
More to come.
English (US) ·