Case Number: 1:26-mc-00001

Court: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia

Client: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Background: On Jan. 14, 2026, the FBI executed a search warrant at the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor charged with illegally retaining classified materials. 

According to the Post, after searching Natanson’s home, agents seized her electronic devices, including her phone, personal laptop, work laptop, and smartwatch. The Post reported that the newspaper was also served with a subpoena seeking information related to the same government contractor.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the search in a social media post, writing that “The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security and the brave men and women serving our country.”

Because the search and seizure of a journalist’s property is a rare and extreme measure, the execution of the warrant immediately drew exceptional public interest. But judicial records related to the search warrant are filed under seal.

Attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed this application to unseal all of the court records related to the search warrant, arguing that the government “cannot justify wholesale secrecy here, where the public’s ability to understand a search with serious consequences for a free press is at stake, and where any basis for secrecy is undercut by the information that is already public.”

Related: In a statement, Reporters Committee President Bruce D. Brown called the FBI’s search of Natanson’s home “a tremendous escalation in the administration’s intrusions into the independence of the press.” Read the full statement.

Update: On Jan. 30, 2026, the court unsealed a redacted version of the search warrant affidavit. “In its affidavit, the government did not reference the federal law that prohibits, with few exceptions, raids targeting journalists or newsrooms to seize unpublished work,” said Gabe Rottman, the Reporters Committee’s vice president of policy. “The government appears to have ignored a crucial press freedom guardrail in searching a journalist’s home and did not alert the magistrate judge to the law’s application in this case, let alone show how or if it had complied with the statute’s considerable protections.”

Filings:

2026-01-14: Application of RCFP to unseal judicial records

2026-01-14: Memorandum of law in support of application of RCFP to unseal judicial records

2026-01-23: Motion for expedited briefing and hearing schedule

2026-01-23: Memorandum of law in support of motion for expedited briefing and hearing schedule

2026-01-23: Order setting expedited briefing and hearing schedule

2026-01-28: Order on continuation

2026-01-30: Government’s response to unseal judicial records

2026-01-30: Government’s motion to unseal most of the common affidavit submitted in support of applications for warrants

2026-01-30: Redacted search warrant affidavit (The redactions in black were added by the Reporters Committee to conceal Natanson’s home address, phone number, and license plate number.)