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 Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on January 14 as part of an investigation into a classified information breach.
- Experts placed the investigation in the context of the Post’s history with press freedom issues, including the famous Pentagon Papers scandal and Operation Ivy Bells in the 1980s.
- Although news organizations and the federal government have long had a hostile relationship, experts said the Trump administration’s actions against journalists are unprecedented and threaten press freedom.
The FBI’s search of a Washington Post reporter’s home is the latest in a long series of press freedom battles for both the paper and the broader industry, spanning multiple presidential administrations.
Hannah Natanson, a federal media representative, was at her home in Virginia on January 14 when the FBI executed a search warrant on her property as part of a leak investigation.
First Amendment experts condemned the investigation, calling it an extremely rare act that could have a chilling effect on the news industry.
But this is not the first time President Donald Trump’s administration has been accused of violating the constitutional rights of the press.
Weeks after President Trump began his second term, the Associated Press sued the administration for refusing to use “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico” in response to Trump’s executive order to rename bodies of water, barring it from broadcasting certain White House events.
Months later, both NPR and PBS cited the First Amendment in their respective lawsuits over the Trump administration’s successful cancellation of federal funding. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributed federal funds to broadcasters, was dissolved in January.
The Pentagon also introduced a new media policy in October, saying reporters who “request” information not authorized for publication could be disqualified. The New York Times filed a lawsuit over the issue in December, calling the policy “exactly the type of speech and reporting restriction program that the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit have found to violate the First Amendment.”
Such lawsuits and controversies are not limited to President Trump’s second term.
CNN sued the White House on First Amendment grounds in 2018 after revoking former reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass following a heated exchange between Acosta and Trump at a news conference. The White House later reinstated Acosta’s eligibility and the lawsuit was dropped.
PEN America also publicly sued Trump in 2018. The complaint describes an alleged “campaign of intimidation against critical reporting” that “even when courageously overcome by hard-working and courageous reporters, chills speech and amounts to an ongoing violation of the First Amendment.”
But experts said those tensions have reached new heights with the FBI raid, which adds not only to the Post’s own history of battles with the federal government but also to that of multiple news organizations dating back decades.
What you need to know about the FBI search of a reporter’s home
A federal judge granted The Washington Post’s Jan. 21 request to bar the government from viewing the seized materials (phones, Garmin watches, work and personal laptops) while the case continues.
The outlet previously told USA TODAY that the FBI’s seizure of such materials “chills speech, paralyzes reporting, and causes irreparable harm every day the government continues to obtain these materials.”
A Justice Department spokesperson said Aurelio Pérez-Lugones, a Pentagon contractor at the center of the leak investigation, was “actively in contact” with Natanson at the time of his arrest and that classified information was discovered in those communications.
The department referred USA TODAY to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Jan. 14
The department also pointed to Bondi’s Fox News interview on the subject, in which he mentioned rescinding policies under former President Joe Biden’s administration that strengthened protections for journalists from government investigations.
Bondi said in an interview that the First Amendment is a “foundational principle” but rejected the idea that the investigation was unconstitutional. The investigation “concerns sensitive material that could put lives at risk,” she said.
USA TODAY has reached out to the FBI for comment.
pentagon papers
Gabe Lotman, vice president for policy at the Reporters Committee for a Freedom of the Press, said the Post has played a “pretty significant role” in press freedom issues throughout its history.
Perhaps the most famous of these battles was the Pentagon Papers case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not prevent the press from releasing information about the Vietnam War that was previously unknown to the public.
The New York Times was the first to publish the paper, followed a few days later by the Washington Post. Lower courts recognized former President Richard Nixon’s government’s efforts to ban further publication, but these decisions were overturned by the Supreme Court.
David Rudenstine, a law professor at New York’s Cardozo School of Law and author of “The Day Newspapers Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case,” said Washington Post leadership at the time was open to the possibility of going to prison for reporting.
“It’s freedom of the press,” he said. “That’s people standing tall in the name of the First Amendment.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Hugo Black said the Founding Fathers understood the vital role a free press plays in a democracy, adding, “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose government deception.”
“In my opinion, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers deserve far from being condemned for their courageous reporting, and should be praised for doing what the Founding Fathers clearly intended,” Black wrote.
Although the ruling gave news organizations “enormous powers,” the case shows that such powers are dependent on the willingness of newsroom executives to exercise them, Rudenstein said.
He listed Katharine Graham, then the publisher of the Washington Post, and the paper’s current owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has not publicly responded to the FBI investigation.
Balancing competing goals
Experts also cited a lesser-known example from the 1980s, when the paper revealed information about Operation Ivy Bells, a US mission to eavesdrop on Soviet underwater communications cables.
The administration of then-President Ronald Reagan threatened legal action against news outlets that reported certain details about the operation on the grounds that such reporting jeopardized national security.
Washington Post leaders spoke with the administration and ultimately published an article that withheld certain details of a potential compromise.
“There was no compromise or backsliding from any important principles,” said Cliff Sloan, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who also served as general counsel for The Washington Post’s online subsidiary in the early 2000s.
The details that were discarded were not important to the story that was ultimately published, he said. He described the issue as an example of effective collaboration between news organizations and the federal government to balance the sometimes conflicting interests of holding governments accountable and maintaining national security.
Concerns about the future of press freedom
According to experts, such a partnership seems less likely in the current situation.
Among the reasons they cited were the administration’s threat to sue CBS News if it did not air the full Trump interview, the Pentagon’s efforts to overhaul the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, and Pentagon news policies that led to the majority of news organizations losing safe access to the building.
But Mary Rose Papandrea, a First Amendment professor at George Washington University, said the search of Natanson’s home was “the salvo that starts a new war on the press.”
“Obviously the war has already begun, but this is a new front,” she said.
However, conflicts with the press are not limited to President Trump.
For example, former President Barack Obama’s administration had a contentious relationship with Fox News. The incidents include the government’s 2009 attempt to bar Fox News, along with four other networks, from interviewing reparations czar Kenneth Feinberg. The White House said its decision was based on “some of[Fox News’]reporting and … the fairness of that reporting.”
Fox News reported that the plan was scrapped after other networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC) refused to participate in interviews without the network’s participation.
Rudenstine said the Nixon administration had a very combative relationship with the press, but added that such tensions reached new heights under the Trump administration.
“I’m not trying to trivialize what the Nixon administration did, but what the Nixon administration did is nowhere near what the Trump administration is doing,” Rudenstine said.
Rotman similarly said the FBI raid marks an “escalation” in the administration’s actions against news organizations, adding that it was the first time in U.S. history that the Justice Department, which falls under the FBI, had searched a reporter’s home as part of a national security breach investigation.
“I have serious concerns about what the future holds,” Papandrea said. “We only have one year left, but we have three years left.”
Breanna Frank is USA TODAY’s First Amendment reporter. please contact her bjfrank@usatoday.com.
USA TODAY’s coverage of First Amendment issues is funded by the Freedom Forum in collaboration with our journalism funding partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
