Updated January 21, 2026, Washington Post: “The Washington Post demanded in a court filing Wednesday that federal law enforcement officials return electronic devices the government seized from a staff reporter’s home last week, writing that the extraordinary search “flouts the First Amendment and ignores federal statutory safeguards for journalists.” Federal agents executed a search warrant on Jan. 14 at the Virginia home of reporter Hannah Natanson, seizing two phones, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin watch. It is exceptionally rare for law enforcement officials to conduct searches at reporters’ homes. The law allows a search of a reporter’s home, but federal regulations intended to protect a free press are designed to make it more difficult to use aggressive law enforcement tactics against reporters to obtain the identities of their sources or information…”

Updated January 19, 2026: “In an unprecedented move, FBI agents searched the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on Wednesday and seized her electronic devices — sparking a swift response led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press both in and outside of court.  It is rare and extreme for the government to take the extraordinary step of searching and seizing a reporter’s property. Reporters Committee President Bruce D. Brown called the search “a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press,” highlighting the danger that such searches can pose to confidential sources and to public interest reporting broadly. The Reporters Committee is now fighting to learn more about the government’s justification for the raid. In a court filing just hours after the search, we asked a federal district court in Virginia to unseal search warrant records related to the raid that are currently hidden from the public. As we wait for the court to weigh in, we’ve broken down what we currently do and don’t know about the raid, why it matters, and what makes the FBI’s actions unprecedented…”

The New York Times – F.B.I. agents conducted a search at the home of a Washington Post reporter on Wednesday [January 14, 2025], as part of what officials said was an investigation into the possible sharing of government secrets. It is exceedingly rare, even in investigations of classified disclosures, for federal agents to search a reporter’s home. A 1980 law called the Privacy Protection Act generally bars search warrants for reporters’ work materials unless the reporters themselves are suspected of a committing a crime related to them. The reporter, Hannah Natanson, has spent the past year covering the Trump administration’s effort to fire federal workers and redirect much of the work force to enforcing his agenda. Many of those employees shared with her their anger, frustration and fear with the administration’s changes. A spokesperson for The Washington Post said on Wednesday that the publication was reviewing and monitoring the situation. An article in The Post said investigators told Ms. Natanson that she is not the focus of the investigation. Law enforcement seized laptops, a phone and a smartwatch during their search. The paper reported that the search warrant and related F.B.I. affidavit indicated that law enforcement was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of gaining access to and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox and his basement. It is unclear whether the F.B.I. sought other means of obtaining the information it was seeking from The Post. According to the affidavit, Mr. Perez-Lugones’s job meant he had access to sensitive information. It said he printed confidential documents that he was not authorized to search for and earlier this year took notes on a classified report related to government activity. The court papers show investigators suspected Mr. Perez-Lugone in recent months of illegally mishandling classified information about an unidentified foreign country. In a statement posted on social media, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the search was executed at the request of the Pentagon, to look for evidence at the home of a journalist “who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”

The Washington Post: “The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at a Washington Post reporter’s home as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. The reporter, Hannah Natanson, was at her home in Virginia at the time of the search. Federal agents searched her home and her devices, seizing her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch. One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Washington Post-issued laptop. It is exceptionally rare for law enforcement officials to conduct searches at reporters’ homes. Federal regulations intended to protect a free press are designed to make it difficult to use aggressive law enforcement tactics against reporters to obtain the identities of their sources or information…”