The FBI searched Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s Virginia home on Wednesday, seizing a phone and a Garmin watch as part of a probe into a government contractor accused of removing classified material, the newspaper reported.
At a Glance
- Agents raided the house of journalist Hannah Natanson while investigating alleged leaks
- Natanson covers Trump administration changes and was told she is not the target
- Navy veteran and system administrator Aurelio Perez-Lugones has been charged with unlawful retention of national defense information
- The search is the latest sign of a tougher stance toward leaks under the Trump administration
- Why it matters: The rare step of searching a reporter’s home could chill sources and intensify the fight over press freedom
Investigators told Natanson she “is not the focus of the probe,” the Post said. The search is tied to an investigation into Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a Navy veteran who works as a system administrator in Maryland and who authorities say took home classified reports.
Perez-Lugones, a Laurel, Maryland, resident and Miami-born U.S. citizen, holds a Top Secret clearance, according to a criminal complaint filed January 9 in U.S. District Court for Maryland. He is charged with unlawful retention of national defense information and made his first court appearance last Friday.
The FBI accuses him of:
- Searching databases without authorization
- Printing or taking screenshots of classified material
- Collecting documents related to a foreign country since October
Surveillance photos in the complaint show Perez-Lugones leaving his workplace January 6 with a black bag. Two days later agents searched his home and found a document marked “SECRET” in the basement and another in a lunch box in his car, the complaint states.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that “leaking classified information puts America’s national security and the safety of our military heroes in serious jeopardy. President Trump has zero tolerance for it.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the search was done at the Pentagon’s request and posted that the administration “will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security.”
The complaint does not link Perez-Lugones to Natanson. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment; Justice Department officials did not immediately respond to questions.
Natanson, a Harvard graduate, covers the Trump administration’s overhaul of the federal government. In December she wrote a first-person piece describing contact with more than a thousand current and former federal workers. She was part of the Post team that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the January 6 Capitol attack.
Bondi issued new guidelines in April restoring prosecutors’ ability to use subpoenas and search warrants against officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists, reversing a Biden-era policy that had shielded reporters’ phone records.
Free-press group PEN America condemned the search. “Targeting a reporter in their own home as part of a federal law enforcement action is an extraordinary escalation that strikes at the heart of press freedom,” said Tim Richardson. “Such behavior is more commonly associated with authoritarian police states than democratic societies.”
