By Andrew Goudsward, Katharine Jackson and Helen Coster
WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – FBI agents searched a Washington Post reporter’s home on Wednesday as part of an investigation into sharing secret government information, officials said, in a move that press advocates said threatened journalistic freedom.
The reporter, Hannah Natanson, has covered U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign to fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers and shift remaining workers to implementing his agenda.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said federal agents had executed the search at the request of the Defense Department. Trump’s Justice Department last year reversed a policy that had barred prosecutors from seizing records from reporters in most circumstances.
Press-freedom advocates called the search a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on news media.
REPORTER NOT A PROBE TARGET, EDITOR SAYS
In a note to staff, Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray said FBI agents searched Natanson’s home and seized her electronic devices. He said she and the paper are not a target of the probe, which is linked to a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified materials.
“This extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” Murray wrote.
Natanson wrote a story in December about her personal experience covering the administration’s efforts concerning federal workers, titled “I am The Post’s ‘federal government whisperer.’ It’s been brutal.” In it, Natanson related the relentless pace of calls and messages she received from former and current federal employees frustrated by the changes. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors allege the contractor, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, took screenshots of classified intelligence reports and printed those documents, according to a criminal complaint. Investigators also found documents marked “secret” in a lunchbox in Perez-Lugones’ car and in his basement, according to an FBI affidavit.
“The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security,” Bondi said on X.
‘HALLMARKS OF ILLIBERAL REGIMES’
“Searches of newsrooms and journalists are hallmarks of illiberal regimes, and we must ensure that these practices are not normalized here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute.
Trump has often taken an antagonistic approach toward the news media and has filed lawsuits against the BBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and a newspaper in Iowa. All four outlets are fighting Trump in court. Others, including CBS and ABC, have paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits by Trump alleging unfair coverage.
Prosecutors in the past have occasionally gone to court to try to get information from reporters, most notably in a 2009 leak investigation that obtained emails from Fox News reporter James Rosen. But they rarely, if ever, have raided a reporter’s home, said Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and seizure of her electronic devices could give them access to sensitive material that has nothing to do with the Perez-Lugones case.
“Whether that was their intention or not, it could certainly have the effect of potentially chilling newsgathering from confidential sources broadly,” Rottman said.
Under owner Jeff Bezos, the world’s fourth-richest person, the Post has shifted its formerly left-leaning opinion section to the right, but its news coverage remains nonpartisan. Amazon.com, which Bezos founded, donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration last year, and Bezos was one of several tech moguls who were featured at the ceremony.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson, Andrew Goudsward and Susan Heavey in Washington and Helen Coster in New York; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham, Chizu Nomiyama and Diane Craft)
