A U.S. magistrate judge in Virginia has temporarily barred federal investigators from reviewing electronic devices seized from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson while the newspaper and the reporter challenge the search on First Amendment and statutory grounds. The search was authorized by a warrant tied to a leak-related investigation of a government contractor, not Natanson, according to court filings described by The Post.
On Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge William B. Porter ordered the government not to access data taken from Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson while he reviews an emergency request from Natanson and the newspaper.
Federal agents executed a search warrant on Jan. 14 at Natanson’s home in Virginia and seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin watch, according to The Washington Post. The judge’s order, issued hours after the newspaper filed in court, directed prosecutors to respond by Jan. 28 and set a hearing for early February.
In the brief order, Porter wrote that Natanson and the Post had “demonstrated good cause in their filings to maintain the status quo” and said the government could keep the items for now but could not review the materials pending further court action.
The warrant was tied to an investigation involving Aurelio Perez-Lugones, whom The Post described as a system administrator in Maryland with top-secret clearance. The Justice Department has charged Perez-Lugones with retaining classified materials, The Post reported, but he has not been accused in court of illegally leaking classified information to the media.
The newspaper criticized the seizure in a statement, saying: “The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials.”
Natanson, who covers the federal workforce, has written that she built a large network of sources by posting her secure contact information to an online forum for government workers, and that communications from sources dropped sharply after the seizure, according to her declaration described by The Post.
The dispute comes amid a broader shift in Justice Department policy. In April 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded Biden-era limits that had restricted prosecutors from using subpoenas and other legal tools to obtain journalists’ records in leak investigations, saying such steps could be taken with high-level approval and generally only after other investigative options had been exhausted, according to reporting by the Associated Press and other outlets.
