The FBI on Wednesday raided the Virginia home of a Washington Post reporter as part of an investigation into a government contractor who’s been accused of illegally retaining classified materials, the newspaper reported.
Hannah Natanson has spent the last year covering President Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal government, specifically through the firings of federal workers and redirecting resources into carrying out his agenda. She was home when federal agents descended on her property Wednesday morning, according to the Washington Post. They seized her phone, as well as her work and personal laptops and a Garmin smartwatch.
“Investigators told Natanson that she is not the focus of the probe,” the Post reported.
According to an affidavit in the case, the FBI search was related to an ongoing investigation into Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a Navy veteran and system administrator in Maryland and who was charged earlier this month with “unlawful retention of national defense information,” according to a criminal complaint cited by NBC News.
Perez-Lugones, who had a top security clearance, is accused of searching databases, then printing classified and sensitive reports at work. In a search of his Maryland home and car this earlier month, authorities uncovered documents marked “SECRET,” including some papers stashed in a lunchbox, according to court documents.
The materials, which Perez Lugones allegedly began collecting in October, were “related to a foreign country,” but few other details were provided.
“Perez-Lugones had no need to know and was not authorized to search for, access, view, screenshot, or print any of this information,” according to the complaint.
The Washington Post said Wednesday that it was monitoring and reviewing the situation.
In a post on social media, Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the search was done at the request of the Defense Department and said the journalist was “obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”
Bondi added that 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.”
With News Wire Services
