The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on Wednesday filed a motion in a federal court in Virginia seeking to unseal the warrant related to the FBI’s search of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home, demanding to know more about “a search with dramatic implications for a free press and the constitutional rights of journalists.”
The group’s motion asked the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia to order the records unsealed, arguing that the Trump administration “cannot justify wholesale secrecy here, where the public’s ability to understand a search with serious consequences for a free press is at stake.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
The filing came hours after FBI agents searched Natanson’s Alexandria, Virginia, home and seized multiple devices, including a Post-issued laptop, as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally accessing and retaining classified government documents. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have said Natanson had been communicating with the contractor.
But the court records related to Aurelio Perez-Lugones, the contractor who federal officials arrested last week, “make no reference to Natanson or to the Washington Post,” the group’s attorneys wrote.
If the Attorney General can describe the justification for searching a reporter’s home on social media,” they continued, ““it is difficult to see what harm could result from unsealing the justification that the Justice Department offered to this Court. The Search Warrant Materials should be unsealed.”
The committee’s president Bruce D. Brown said on Wednesday that the search marked one of “the most invasive investigative steps law enforcement can take,” as it requires agents to adhere to certain policy restrictions before they enter a reporter’s home.
“While we won’t know the government’s arguments about overcoming these very steep hurdles until the affidavit is made public, this is a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press,” Brown said.
The Post’s executive editor Matt Murray called the search “deeply concerning” in a memo to staff on Wednesday and said it raised “profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work.”
“The Washington Post has a long history of zealous support for robust press freedoms,” he wrote. “The entire institution stands by those freedoms and our work.”
