Washington Post seeks court order for government to return electronics seized from reporter’s home

The Washington Post has petitioned a federal court to recover electronic devices seized from one of its reporters during an FBI raid last week, escalating tensions between press freedom advocates and law enforcement authorities.

Federal agents executed a search warrant at reporter Hannah Natanson’s Virginia home on Wednesday, confiscating two phones, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive, and a Garmin smartwatch. The seized materials contain years of Natanson’s journalistic work spanning hundreds of stories, including confidential source communications.

“The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials,” the Post said in a statement accompanying its court filing.

The newspaper’s legal petition asks a federal court in Virginia to order the immediate return of all seized items and to prohibit the government from using any information obtained from them. The Post argues that the seizures violated both Natanson’s First Amendment rights and established legal protections for journalists.

In response to the newspaper’s request, a magistrate judge in Alexandria has scheduled a February 6 hearing and temporarily barred government officials from reviewing any of the seized materials until then.

The search was reportedly connected to an investigation of Pentagon contractor Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, who was arrested earlier this month on charges of unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. Perez-Lugones, a U.S. Navy veteran residing in Maryland, has not been charged with sharing classified information or accused in court papers of leaking materials.

Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that the search was conducted at the Defense Department’s request, claiming the journalist was “obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”

Natanson has recently been covering the transformation of the federal government under Republican President Donald Trump. The Post has described her as “the federal government whisperer” for her ability to cultivate hundreds of sources within federal agencies.

The raid comes amid significant changes in Department of Justice policies regarding press freedoms. In April, Bondi issued new guidelines that restored prosecutors’ authority to use subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to investigate government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists. These guidelines rescinded a Biden administration policy that had protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations.

Press freedom advocates have expressed alarm at the unprecedented nature of the search. Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the raid a “profound threat to the First Amendment” that “imperils public interest reporting and will have ramifications far beyond this specific case.”

The case highlights growing tensions between government secrecy concerns and press freedom protections. Legal experts note that raids on journalists’ homes have traditionally been rare in the United States due to First Amendment considerations and Justice Department guidelines designed to protect press freedoms.

Media organizations and civil liberties groups are closely monitoring the case, which could set important precedents for how aggressively the government can pursue journalists in leak investigations. The Washington Post’s legal challenge argues that “anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant.”

The outcome of next month’s hearing will likely influence how journalists and their sources interact in covering sensitive government matters, particularly regarding national security issues where the boundaries between legitimate reporting and disclosure of classified information can sometimes blur.