A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department not to review electronic devices the FBI seized from a Washington Post reporter’s home last week.
Agents took two phones, two laptops, a Garmin watch, a hard drive, and a recording device from Hannah Natanson’s home, the Washington Post said, in what was part of an investigation into Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, a government contractor who was charged earlier this month with illegally retaining classified documents.
On Wednesday, Magistrate Judge William Porter of the Eastern District of Virginia prohibited prosecutors from looking at any of the items taken during the pre-dawn raid.
“The government must preserve but must not review any of the materials that law enforcement seized… until the Court authorizes review of the materials by further order,” he wrote.
Earlier Wednesday, the Post’s lawyers argued that the judge should order the government to return the seized devices to Natanson. “Anything less would license future newsroom raids and normalize censorship by search warrant,” they wrote.
“The federal government’s wholesale seizure of a reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials violates the Constitution’s protections for free speech and a free press and should not be allowed to stand,” they added in the court filing.
The Post’s lawyers also contended that the Justice Department should have just subpoenaed Natanson as it did to them on the day of the raid.
By opting for the execution of a search warrant, “the government seized this proverbial haystack in an attempt to locate a needle,” they wrote.
The DOJ and Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Natanson isn’t accused of any wrongdoing.
Perez-Lugones has not been charged with leaking documents to the press, only possessing them. FBI Director Kash Patel, 45, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, 60, have implied that Perez-Lugones, who had top-level security clearances, was a source for Natanson, CNN reported.
Natanson wrote about ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a Jan. 9 story that cited government documents.
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