A person enters the One Franklin Square Building, home of the Washington Post, on June 21, 2024, in Washington.
Alex Brandon | AP
FBI agents raided the home of a Washington Post reporter Wednesday as part of a leak investigation into a Pentagon contractor accused of sharing classified information, the Justice Department said.
Hannah Natanson, who has been covering President Donald Trump’s changes to the federal government, had her cell phone and Garmin watch confiscated in a search of her Virginia home, the newspaper reported. Ms. Natanson has reported extensively on federal employees, recently publishing an article explaining how she obtained hundreds of new sources, leading one of her colleagues to call her the “Federal Whisperer.”
Searches for classified documents are not unusual, but the search of the reporter’s home marks an intensification of the government’s efforts to crack down on leaks.
“Leaks of classified information seriously jeopardize America’s national security and the safety of our military heroes,” White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said in a post on X. “President Trump has zero tolerance for this and will continue to aggressively crack down on these illegal activities.”
The newspaper reported that the affidavit said the search was related to an investigation into a system administrator in Maryland who authorities say had brought back confidential reports. System administrator Aurelio Pérez-Lugones was charged earlier this month with illegally retaining national defense information, according to court documents.
Perez-Lugones, who held top-secret classified information, is accused of printing classified reports at work. Authorities searched his Maryland home and car this month and found documents marked “confidential,” including documents in his lunchbox, according to court documents.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the raid was conducted at the request of the Pentagon, and that the journalists were “obtaining and reporting confidential information that had been illegally leaked from a Pentagon contractor.”
In a post on X, Bondi said the Trump Republican administration “will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, if reported, pose grave risks to our national security and the brave men and women who serve our country.”
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday. The Washington Post said Wednesday it was monitoring and reviewing the situation. An email requesting comment was sent to Perez-Lugones’ attorney.
Over the years, the Justice Department has developed and revised internal guidelines governing how to respond to news media breaches.
In April, Bondi announced new guidelines that would again give prosecutors the power to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to search for government officials who have made “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.
The move reverses a policy by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration that protects journalists from having their cellphone records secretly seized during breach investigations, a practice long condemned by news organizations and press freedom groups.
The aggressive stance in this case stands in contrast to the Justice Department’s approach to the disclosure of military secrets through Signal chats involving senior Trump administration officials last spring. A reporter was added to that chat by mistake. Bondi stated at the time that he believed the episode was a mistake, and publicly expressed reluctance to open an investigation.
Bondi also reiterated the Trump administration’s claim that sensitive information in the chats was not classified, although current and former U.S. officials said postings of aircraft launch times and the time pilots dropped bombs before they took flight would have been classified.
