The US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday morning on social media X that the Department of War (formerly known as the Department of Defense) requested the Department of Justice and the FBI to execute a search warrant on the residence of a reporter from The Washington Post last week.
According to Bondi, the reporter obtained illegally leaked confidential information from Pentagon contractors and reported on it, and has been arrested. She emphasized that the Trump administration will not tolerate the illegal leaking of confidential information, as it poses a serious threat to national security and the brave men and women serving the country.
The FBI agents searched the electronic devices of The Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson at her home in Virginia and found a mobile phone and a Garmin watch as part of the investigation into a government contractor suspected of taking government secrets home.
Natanson primarily reports on the Trump administration’s reform of the federal government. She recently published an article describing how she obtained information from hundreds of new sources and was referred to as the “whisperer of the federal government” by a colleague.
According to The Washington Post, an affidavit indicates that the search is related to a system administrator in Maryland, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, who was earlier charged with unauthorized possession of defense information, taking classified documents home, and printing sensitive documents at the workplace.
Perez-Lugones holds the highest level of security clearance. Court documents show that authorities searched his residence and vehicle in Maryland this month, discovering documents labeled “secret,” with one even hidden in a lunch box.
Over the years, the Department of Justice has developed and revised internal guidelines to regulate its response to leaking events in the news media.
In April of this year, the Department of Justice issued new guidelines: prosecutors will once again have the authority to use subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to investigate government officials who disclose information to journalists without authorization. This guidance replaces a policy of the Biden administration that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly confiscated during leak investigations.
(Reference: Associated Press)