{"id":409067,"date":"2026-01-14T17:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/409067\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T17:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:13:09","slug":"fbi-searches-washington-post-reporters-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/409067\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI searches Washington Post reporter\u2019s home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Last month, Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson penned a first-person piece about her long year as \u201cthe federal government whisperer<\/a>,\u201d receiving tips from hundreds of federal workers impacted by President Donald Trump\u2019s transformation of the government.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Wednesday morning, FBI agents arrived at Natanson\u2019s home and executed a search warrant. One phone and two computers were seized, the Post reported.\n <\/p>\n

\n Attorney General Pam Bondi alleged in a post on X<\/a> that Natanson was \u201cobtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The Post had no immediate response to Bondi\u2019s allegation. Earlier, a Post spokesperson said the publication was monitoring the situation.\n <\/p>\n

\n The highly unusual search immediately set off alarms among press freedom advocates.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cSearches of newsrooms and journalists are hallmarks of illiberal regimes, and we must ensure that these practices are not normalized here,\u201d said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute.\n <\/p>\n

\n Press advocates also stressed that journalists do not commit a crime by reporting on or publishing leaked documents, even when the sources who disclose them may face legal exposure.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cJournalists are legally permitted to publish government secrets and the courts have again and again reaffirmed that First Amendment right,\u201d Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Natanson was told that she is not a target of the investigation, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Instead, it appears to be related to an ongoing probe of a government contractor in Maryland.\n <\/p>\n

\n According to the Post\u2019s own story<\/a>, \u201cthe warrant said that law enforcement was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top secret security clearance and has been accused of accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox and his basement, according to an FBI affidavit.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Perez-Lugones was charged last week with illegally retaining classified documents, according to a federal affidavit. \ufeffHe is scheduled to appear in federal court on Thursday.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bondi did not name any specific individual in her statement, but said, \u201cThe leaker is currently behind bars.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n She said the search of Natanson\u2019s home was \u201cat the request of the Department of War,\u201d using the Trump administration\u2019s preferred name for the Department of Defense.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe Trump administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation\u2019s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country,\u201d Bondi said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Reporters immediately expressed concern about a more sweeping pursuit of leakers. In last month\u2019s Post column, Natanson described having 1,169 new Signal contacts from across the federal government \u2014 people who \u201cdecided to trust me with their stories.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Signal is an encrypted messaging app, generally considered to be a secure way to communicate with sources. Natanson also described other steps she took to ensure the confidentiality of the people who wanted to confide in her.\n <\/p>\n

\n But now, a Post reporter told CNN on condition of anonymity, \u201cWe\u2019re all scrambling to figure out what additional precautions we need to take.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A second Post reporter said, \u201cWe\u2019re horrified for Hannah, who\u2019s a wonderful reporter, and scared for ourselves, trying to think through how best to further protect sources and secure our reporting and devices.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press president Bruce D. Brown said, \u201cPhysical searches of reporters\u2019 devices, homes, and belongings are some of the most invasive investigative steps law enforcement can take.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere 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,\u201d Brown pointed out.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhile we won\u2019t know the government\u2019s arguments about overcoming these very steep hurdles until the affidavit is made public, this is a tremendous escalation in the administration\u2019s intrusions into the independence of the press.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The Justice Department alleged in court documents that Perez-Lugones, a former Navy official who\u2019s been a government contractor with top security clearance since 2002, searched databases containing classified information in October 2025, accessing a top-secret intelligence report related to an unnamed foreign country.\n <\/p>\n

\n The FBI alleged that Perez-Lugones took screenshots of parts of that classified report and placed them into a Word document.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Justice Department also alleged that Perez-Lugones took notes on information in a classified system earlier this month and that investigators found documents marked as secret in his car in Maryland.\n <\/p>\n

\n Notably, there are no allegations in Perez-Lugones\u2019s charging documents regarding any possible leak to any news outlet.\n <\/p>\n

\n He is currently detained, after the Justice Department argued Tuesday in a court filing that Perez-Lugones could disseminate more information if he were to be released.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson penned a first-person piece about her long year as \u201cthe federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-409067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}