Washington Post Fights Back and Demands Government Return Materials After FBI Raided Reporter’s Home

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

The Washington Post is demanding that the government return materials seized from one of its reporters last week in an FBI raid.

The Post argued in a court filing that the government’s actions against reporter Hannah Natanson ignore “federal statutory safeguards for journalists.” The FBI raided Natanson’s Virginia home on January 14 and seized multiple devices, including phones, laptops, and a recorder.

According to an FBI affidavit, the warrant the FBI used is tied to an inquiry into Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a Maryland-based system administrator with top-secret clearance. He’s accused of taking classified reports home.

“This morning the [FBI] and partners executed a search warrant of an individual at the Washington Post who was found to allegedly be obtaining and reporting classified, sensitive military information from a government contractor – endangering our warfighters and compromising America’s national security,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a statement.

The DOJ claims that Natanson was messaging with Perez-Lugones earlier this month.

The Post’s court filing demanding the materials be returned followed a January 20 meeting where officials refused to return the devices. The paper is asking a Virginia judge to bar government officials from accessing the devices until the case has been settled in court. A ruling against them, they argued, would be a step towards normalizing “censorship by search warrant.”

“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 paper said in a statement about their latest move. “We have asked the court to order the immediate return of all seized materials and prevent their use. Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant.”

They also argued that the material seized is not relevant to the case in question. They noted that the materials seized do contain information about “confidential sources.”

“The government seized this proverbial haystack in an attempt to locate a needle,” they added.

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