FBI agents search Washington Post reporter’s home
FBI agents raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson over classified documents.
- The FBI raided the home of reporter Hanna Natanson on January 14 as part of an investigation into government contractor Aurelio Pérez-Lugones, who was accused of illegally storing classified documents.
- Judge William Porter’s Feb. 24 order said the court, not the federal government, will review the seized equipment and determine what, if any, content is relevant to the breach investigation.
- Press freedom advocates welcomed the ruling on the government’s efforts to search the equipment, but criticized it for not ordering the return of Natanson’s property.
A federal judge has barred President Donald Trump’s administration from investigating materials seized by the FBI during a raid on a Washington Post reporter’s Virginia home in January as part of a national security breach investigation.
The agency executed a search warrant at the home of reporter Hanna Natanson on January 14 as part of an investigation into Aurelio Pérez-Lugones, a government contractor accused of illegally storing classified documents. Items including phones and both work and personal laptops were seized during the search.
Judge William Porter’s Feb. 24 order said the court will review the documents to determine what, if any, is relevant to the leak investigation.
Allowing the government to do so, Porter wrote, “is the equivalent of putting the government fox in charge of the Washington Post chicken coop.”
He did not order the materials returned to Natanson.
“We applaud the court’s recognition of core First Amendment protections and its rejection of the government’s expansionist argument that it placed the burden on itself to fully investigate Hannah Natanson’s devices and works and determine their relevance,” the Washington Post said in a Feb. 24 statement posted to X.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
“These are not easy problems.”
Porter’s order cited tensions that can exist between news organizations and the federal government, as the two parties sometimes have competing interests in holding elected officials accountable and maintaining national security.
“These are not easy issues,” he said.
Porter noted that the plaintiffs’ “First Amendment rights have been limited” through this issue, but added that the U.S. Supreme Court “has never granted news organizations absolute immunity from legal constraints.”
He also criticized the government for failing to cite the 1980 Privacy Act, which generally requires a subpoena to obtain a journalist’s work, when applying for a search warrant.
“This omission seriously undermined the court’s confidence in the government’s disclosures in this case,” he wrote.
Both orders are welcomed but criticized by press freedom advocates.
Gabe Lotman, vice president for policy at the Reporters Committee for a Free Press, said the omission “could cloud this case going forward.”
He said Mr Porter’s order against the government’s efforts to review the seized material was “the right decision” and “constitutionally appropriate.”
Seth Stern, advocacy director at the Press Freedom Foundation, said the order “didn’t go far enough.”
He would have wanted the government to return Mr. Natanson’s property, citing a lack of evidence that Mr. Porter had material that threatened national security.
The Trump administration “even more so than any other administration, has a long track record of falsely claiming national security threats to protect against embarrassment and advance a political agenda,” he said.
A status meeting is scheduled for March 4th.
Breanna Frank is USA TODAY’s First Amendment reporter. please contact her bjfrank@usatoday.com.
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