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FBI search of a Washington Post reporter's home was dangerous

By: Rob Miraldi
guest columnist

..... Hannah Natanson is known around Washington political and journalistic circles as the "federal government whisperer." And, as you might suspect, having insiders from the beleaguered Trump administration whispering in your reporter's ear right now might put you in a dangerous place.
..... Natanson, a budding star reporter fro the Washington Post, learned this on January 14 [2026] when the FBI search warrant in hand, swooped into her Virginia home to prowl around with the reporter following. The FBI seized - without a subpoena - her phone, personal laptop, company-issued computer and her smart watch. This is extraordinary.
..... If you know how reporters work, they live on their computers, their work product carefully stored and cataloged; their sources, hundreds of them, camouflaged as much as possible. in a court filing asking for the return of the devices, the Post noted that they "contain years of information about past and current confidential sources and other unpublished news-gathering materials - essentially her entire professional universe."

Reporting? Or espionage? It's a blurry line these days

..... Two years ago I spoke with the former editor of the Post, Marty Baron, who dealt with Trump in his first term.
..... "He doesn't care what would happen to a journalist. He'd like to see reporters in jail, he told me.
..... Wary of this, Natanson kept notes from her reporting conversations in an encrypted drive; she never wrote down anyone's name; used a browser with no search history; and a privacy screen for her iPhone and computer.
..... "I carried both with me at all times, even walking between rooms in my house," she said. Spy stuff.
..... Being a reporter these days is like being a spy - you need to cover your tracks. Because - let's be honest - the White House Palace Guard sees you as the enemy, knows you are prying behind the scenes of Trump policy making and realizers reporters with inside ears an only case trouble.
..... Simple solution: Get the troublemakers. The White House says Natanson was not a criminal target but a warrant would have to spell out "probable cause." But cause for what? What else but to get their hands on a source-suspect and discover what he told Natanson? The FBI wanted her sources because she was a danger - to them, not the nation.
..... By the way, the FBI was led to Natanson because when the government arrested Aurelio Perez-Lugones, later accused of possessing classified documents, he was whispering messages to none other than Natanson.
..... Natanson is a soccer-playing Harvard graduate who came to the Post - one of the nation's most powerful publications - and initially covered education. She was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the January 6 [2021] incursion of the U.S. Capitol. Surely that didn't endear her to the president.
..... but in the first year of Trump's second administration, as more than 320,000 employees left government service in often chaotic layoffs of probationary and civil service employees, her interest was piqued.
..... What was the effect of the largest reduction of the federal workforce in over seven decades? A year ago she put out a call on Reddit for insider government employees to talk to her about the wrecking ball that was transforming the federal government.
..... Incredibly, she cultivated 1,169 sources and their information led the post to numerous scoops, like the firing of 18 independent inspectors general and the misuse of private taxpayer information, to name a few.

Will the bid to make Natanson an example scare the press?

..... Hannah Natanson was a wrecking ball. Stop her in her tracks, and in the process warn sources and other reporters.
..... "Fear of exposure will cause dissidents to communicate less openly to trusted reporters," explained Supreme Court Judge William O. Douglas back in 1972.
..... Chill their speech! Which is precisely what the First amendment is meant to prevent.
..... This federal invasion is both unprecedented and alarming, which explains why press advocacy groups are screaming, running into court with the Washington Post. On February 9, [2026] a press advocacy group asked the Virginia Bar Association to sanction the federal prosecutor who brought the case, pointing out that a 1980 feudal statue makes it "unlawful" to search a reporter's work product unless the reporter is the subject. Natannson is not.
..... The premise of a functioning democracy is that people are competent and can make proper decisions on public policy and elections. But their competence is base don receiving liberal information through a steady stream of competing ideas and opinions.
..... Douglas, who believed reporters' sources should be protected by the Constitution, understood that "effective self-government cannot succeed unless the people are immersed in a robust, unimpeded, and uncensored flow of opinion and reporting which are continuously subjected to critique, rebuttal, and re-examination,"
..... And for that journalists need unfettered access to sources - and government can't pry those sources out of them or search in their notebooks or computers.
..... "A democracy does not grow stronger by intimidating the press. It grows weaker,: the Society for Professional Journalists declares.
..... But this is a Trump-caused crisis. The issue has been settled for 50 years - until this administration became hostile interlopers. Two Supreme Court decisions (1972 and 1978) established the principle that the press is not immune to the laws that other citizens have to follow. No special constitutional privilege.
..... The newsroom - in this case, Natanson's house - does not have a special sanctity that would prevent law enforcement from searching. Fair enough. But the court has also made clear: the press is so vital to a functioning democracy that going after reporters should always be a last resort. can you get the evidence some other way? In this case of course.
..... Again Douglas hit the nail on the head years ago, writing: "The press has a preferred positions in our constitutional scheme, not to enable it to make money, not to set newsmen apart as a favored class, but to bring fulfillment to the public's right to know ... crucial to the government powers of the people."
..... Granted, this is a tricky issue with competing interests - the pres to protect sources and the government need for evidence of crimes. But the courts have long accommodated both. The government has plenty of options to stop the leakers.
..... But stay away form the pres, unless a reporter has commuted the crime. And, remember, receiving and pulbishing intelligence secerts is not a crime. don't criminalize protected speech.
..... This administraiton oculd give a hoot about that because, as Douglas understood, reporters are "often engaged in projects that bring anxiety or even fear to the bureaucracies, departments, or officials of government. The whole weight of government is therefore often brought to bear against a paper or a reporter."
..... and hat is why we have a First amendment. But until we have a president whip is held to account, reporters like the "federal ghost whisperer" are in deep trouble. And so is democracy.

..... Rob Miraldi's First Amendment writing has won numerous awards. He taught journalism at the State University of New York for many years. Email:rob.miraldi@gmail.com

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