A federal judge has prohibited the justice department from searching electronic devices it seized from a Washington Post reporter, ruling that the court will search the devices for documents related to a national security investigation itself.
In his ruling, magistrate judge William Porter criticized the Trump administration for omitting relevant case law in its application for a search warrant to seize the devices in the first place, but acknowledged “the possibility that classified national security information may be among the seized material” complicated the matter.
On 14 January, the FBI raided the home of Post reporter Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. A self described “federal government whisperer”, Natanson has also reported on federal employees who were laid off by the Trump administration during Elon Musk’s Doge cuts – developing nearly 1,200 confidential sources from across 120 government agencies.