Judge says administration can't search devices of Washington Post reporter
By: BrieAnna J. Frank
USA Today
..... A federal judge has barred the Trump administration from searching through materials the FBI seized in a raid of a Washington reporter's home as part of a national security leak investigation.
..... The agency executed a search warrant at reporter Hannah Natanson's home in Virginia on January 14 [2026] as part of a probe into Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a government contractor accused accused of illegally retaining classified documents. Authorities seized materials including a phone and both a work and personal laptop.
..... Judge William Porter's February 23 [2026] order said the court would not review the materials to determine what, if any, content is relevant to the leak investigation.
..... Allowing the government to do so "is the equivalent of leaving the government's fox in change of the Washington Post's hen-house," Porter wrote.
..... He did not order that the material be returned to Natanson.
..... "We applaud the court's recognizing of core First Amendment protections and tis rejection of the government's expansionist arguments for searching Hannah Natanson's devices and work materials in their entirety and placing itself in charge of determining their relevance," the Washington Post said in a February 24 [2026] statement on X.
..... The Justice Department declined to comment.
......
Porter's order referenced the tension what can exist between the press and federal government because of their sometimes competing interests in holding elected officials accountable and preserving national security.
..... "These are not easy issues," Porter wrote.
..... While he noted that the plaintiffs' "First Amendment rights have been restrained" through the matter, Porter added that the U.S. Supreme Court "has never recognized absolute press immunity from legal constraints."
.....
He also condemned the government's failure to reference the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which generally requires the government to get a subpoena to obtain journalists' work products, in its search warrant application.
.....
"This omission has seriously undermined the Court's confidence in the government's disclosures in this proceeding," he wrote.
..... Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, described Porter's order against the government's effort to review the seized materials as "the right call" and "constitutionally appropriate."
.....
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the order "didn't go far enough."
..... Stern said he would have liked to see Porter require the government return Natanson's property, citing a lack of evidence suggesting the materials threaten national security.
..... a status conference in the case is scheduled for March 4. [2026]
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