FBI agents executed what the outlet characterized as a “highly unusual and aggressive” search warrant at the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on Jan. 14 as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified documents.
During the raid at Natanson’s Virginia home, agents took her two phones, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive, and a Garmin watch. The outlet said in its filing that the materials seized were not relevant to the search warrant.
The outlet’s attorneys argued that the government “seized this proverbial haystack in an attempt to locate a needle,” and said that the devices contain years’ worth of confidential news gathering materials unrelated to the government’s investigation.
Natanson covers federal workers and has had a hand in the outlet’s most high-profile and sensitive reporting related to government filings, national security, and diplomacy during the second Trump administration.
Federal officials and the outlet’s lawyers met Tuesday, and the government rejected a request to return materials. The outlet’s attorneys said the federal officials would not comply with a request to refrain from reviewing the materials until the matter was settled.
The outlet’s statement described the retention of materials as an act that “chills speech, cripples reporting and inflicts irreparable harm.”
While the Department of Justice maintains that neither Natanson nor the outlet is a target of the inquiry, the search was conducted as part of an investigation into Aurelio Perez-Lugones.
Perez-Lugones is a Maryland system administrator with a top secret security clearance and was arrested earlier this month for illegally retaining classified information.
Federal agents reported finding documents marked “SECRET” in his basement and inside his lunchbox.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an X post at the time of the search that the operation was done alongside the Pentagon and War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
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“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,” Bondi said.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has condemned the raid as a “tremendous intrusion” and a dangerous normalization of “censorship by search warrant.”
