(CNN) — Last month, Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson penned a first-person piece about her long year as “the federal government whisperer,” receiving tips from hundreds of federal workers impacted by President Donald Trump’s transformation of the government.
Early Wednesday morning, FBI agents arrived at Natanson’s home and executed a search warrant. One phone and two computers were seized, the Post reported.
“This extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” Post editor Matt Murray said in a memo to the newsroom.
Attorney General Pam Bondi alleged in an internet post that Natanson was “obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”
FBI Director Kash Patel alleged in a separate statement that “an individual at the Washington Post” obtained and reported “classified, sensitive military information from a government contractor.” The FBI has not charged the reporter and has not presented evidence to support its claim.
The Post had no immediate response to the allegations. Earlier, a Post spokesperson said the publication was monitoring the situation.
The highly unusual search immediately set off alarms among press freedom advocates.
“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.
Press advocates also stressed that journalists do not commit a crime by reporting on or publishing leaked documents, even when the sources who disclose them may face legal exposure.
“Journalists are legally permitted to publish government secrets and the courts have again and again reaffirmed that First Amendment right,” Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA, told CNN.
Natanson was told that she is not a target of the investigation, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Instead, it appears to be related to an ongoing probe of a government contractor in Maryland.
According to the Post’s own story, “the warrant said 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 accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox and his basement, according to an FBI affidavit.”
Perez-Lugones was charged last week with illegally retaining classified documents, according to a federal affidavit. He is scheduled to appear in federal court on Thursday.
Bondi did not name any specific individual in her statement, but said, “The leaker is currently behind bars.”
She said the search of Natanson’s home was “at the request of the Department of War,” using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Department of Defense.
“The Trump administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country,” Bondi said.
Hours after the FBI searched Natanson’s home, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the “leaker on Venezuela” has “been found and is in jail right now.”
The Justice Department has not said in court documents that the person in custody related to the FBI search specifically revealed information on Venezuela, and Trump provided no further details.
‘A tremendous escalation’
Reporters immediately expressed concern about a more sweeping pursuit of leakers. In last month’s Post column, Natanson described having 1,169 new Signal contacts from across the federal government — people who “decided to trust me with their stories.”
Signal is an encrypted messaging app, generally considered to be a secure way to communicate with sources. Natanson also described other steps she took to ensure the confidentiality of the people who wanted to confide in her.
But now, a Post reporter told CNN on condition of anonymity, “We’re all scrambling to figure out what additional precautions we need to take.”
A second Post reporter said, “We’re horrified for Hannah, who’s a wonderful reporter, and scared for ourselves, trying to think through how best to further protect sources and secure our reporting and devices.”
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press president Bruce D. Brown said, “Physical searches of reporters’ devices, homes, and belongings are some of the most invasive investigative steps law enforcement can take.”
“There are specific federal laws and policies at the Department of Justice that are meant to limit searches to the most extreme cases because they endanger confidential sources far beyond just one investigation and impair public interest reporting in general,” Brown pointed out.
“While we won’t know the government’s arguments about overcoming these very steep hurdles until the affidavit is made public, this is a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press.”
The Pentagon contractor
The Justice Department alleged in court documents that Perez-Lugones, a former Navy official who’s been a government contractor with top security clearance since 2002, searched databases containing classified information in October 2025, accessing a top-secret intelligence report related to an unnamed foreign country.
The FBI alleged that Perez-Lugones took screenshots of parts of that classified report and placed them into a Word document.
The Justice Department also alleged that Perez-Lugones took notes on information in a classified system earlier this month and that investigators found documents marked as secret in his car in Maryland.
Notably, there are no allegations in Perez-Lugones’s charging documents regarding any possible leak to any news outlet.
He is currently detained, after the Justice Department argued Tuesday in a court filing that Perez-Lugones could disseminate more information if he were to be released.
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