FBI searches Washington Post journalist's home in national security probe

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.

The Post reported that Natanson was present for the search of her Virginia home on Wednesday.

It reported that the search was linked to a criminal case against Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a technology specialist for a U.S. government contractor who was charged last week with unlawful retention of national defence information.

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.

The Post said on X that investigators told Natanson she was not a focus of the probe. Natanson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Prosecutors alleged that 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.

"Searches of newsrooms and journalists are hallmarks of illiberal regimes, and we must ensure that these practices are not normalised 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 (AMZN.O), 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.