FBI Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist Who Reported 'Classified and Illegally Leaked Information'
The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday morning for Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson at her home in Virginia.
The Post reported, “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.”
“While it is not unusual for FBI agents to conduct leak investigations of reporters who publish sensitive government information, it is highly unusual and aggressive for law enforcement to conduct a search on a reporter’s home,” the outlet added.
The New York Times reported that Natanson is not the focus of the investigation and that the FBI seized laptops, a phone, and a smartwatch.
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the search with a post on social media on Wednesday.
“This past week, at the request of the Department of War, the Department of Justice and FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post journalist who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”
“The leaker is currently behind bars. I am proud to work alongside Secretary Hegseth on this effort. 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,” she added.
This past week, at the request of the Department of War, the Department of Justice and FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post journalist who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor. The leaker is…
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) January 14, 2026
Independent journalist Julie Kelly posted on X, “Natanson bragged about her year-long role as a portal for complaints by federal workers — some who disclosed to her they had contemplated suicide over the president’s reforms — in a Dec 2025 [column] and revealed she clearly accepted information she knew she should not have had. The senders also acknowledged as much.”
“This leak operation resulted in several stories at WashPo intended to damage the Trump administration,” she added.
The FBI raided the home of WashPo reporter Hannah Natanson this morning related to her suspected unauthorized handling/sharing classified information on Signal chats. (Prepare for more political whiplash as suddenly it becomes ok for someone to do so if one is a reporter.)… pic.twitter.com/JuUb25DLXK
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) January 14, 2026
The Washington Post published a story on Dec. 24 by Natanson titled, “I am The Post’s ‘federal government whisperer.’ It’s been brutal.”
The lengthy piece recounted her experience of sharing her contact information on a federal news forum on Reddit just weeks into President Donald Trump’s second term last year and being flooded with Signal app messages from federal government workers.
Many dealt with job cuts and other major policy changes under the new administration and its Department of Government Efficiency.
Natanson wrote, “The messages came from three-letter agencies whose sunglasses-clad agents I’d grown up watching actors play on television, and from a slew of smaller organizations I never knew existed.”
One Signal message from Feb. 23 read, “I had no intention of leaving Federal service before the election, but I’m currently applying desperately in an effort to get back to private sector. Everything I liked about my job — telework, stability, serving the greater good — was taken from me.”
Last year, Trump’s leadership team reduced the federal workforce by over 270,000 employees, bringing the total back to its lowest level in more than a decade.
The current number of federal employees is 2.744 million, the lowest since late 2014.
Former President Joe Biden presided over a nearly 6-percent increase in the size of the full-time federal workforce during his tenure, with the total cresting 3 million in September 2024 for the first time since 1990, according to USA Facts.
Regarding search warrants concerning reporters, The New York Times noted that during President Barack Obama’s administration, Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department obtained a search warrant against then-Fox News correspondent James Rosen. In an affidavit to obtain the warrant, the FBI labeled him a “criminal co-conspirator” in a leak investigation related to North Korea.
CBS News reported in 2013 that the FBI searched his emails and went through his phone records. The DOJ never charged Rosen with a crime, and later claimed it had no intention of doing so, according to The New York Times.
Additionally, the Associated Press reported that same year, “The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for the Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.”
During the Biden administration in 2021, the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid of investigative journalist and Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe’s home.
O’Keefe said at the time that the FBI raids came after Project Veritas had voluntarily surrendered what was believed to be first daughter Ashley Biden’s diary to law enforcement.
“Late last year, we were approached by tipsters claiming they had a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary,” he recounted. “The tipsters indicated that they were negotiating with a different media outlet for the payment of monies for the diary.”
For ethical reasons, including not being able to confirm its authenticity, Veritas ultimately decided not to publish the diary, O’Keefe said.
Nevertheless, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity that did not stop 10 FBI agents from showing up at his door with a battering ram before daybreak.
When he opened the door, the agents handcuffed him and confiscated his phone, reporter’s notes, and confidential source and Veritas donor information.
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