FBI agents searched the home of a Washington Post reporter Wednesday as part of a leak investigation, a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s tactics in seeking information from the news media.

It is exceedingly rare, even in investigations of classified disclosures, for federal agents to search a reporter’s home. A 1980 law called the Privacy Protection Act generally bars search warrants for reporters’ work materials unless the reporters themselves are suspected of committing a crime related to the materials.

The reporter, Hannah Natanson, has spent the past year covering the Trump administration’s effort to fire federal workers and to redirect much of the workforce toward enforcing his agenda. Many of those employees shared with her their anger, frustration and fear of the administration’s changes.

A spokesperson for the Post said Wednesday that the publication was reviewing and monitoring the situation. The law enforcement agents seized laptops, a phone and a smartwatch during their search.

In a message to staff, Matt Murray, executive editor of the Post, said neither Natanson nor the paper was a focus of the investigation.

“Nonetheless, this extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work,” he wrote.

Behind the investigation

Court documents indicate that law enforcement officials were investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of gaining access to and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox and his basement.

It is unclear whether the FBI sought other means of obtaining the information it was seeking from the Post.

According to the FBI affidavit, Perez-Lugones’ job meant he had access to sensitive information. It said he printed confidential documents that he was not authorized to search for and earlier this year took notes on a classified report related to government activity.

The court papers show investigators suspected Perez-Lugones in recent months of illegally mishandling classified information about an unidentified foreign country.

In a statement on social media, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the search was executed at the request of the Pentagon to look for evidence at the home of a journalist “who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor.”

Free Amendment argument

Free speech experts condemned the move as an aggressive escalation that could undercut press freedom.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, pointed to the chilling effect it could have “on legitimate journalistic activity.”

“There are important limits on the government’s authority to carry out searches that implicate First Amendment activity,” Jaffer said.

Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called the search one of the most invasive steps law enforcement could take. He said federal laws and policies limited searches to the most extreme cases.

“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,” he said.

In a first-person account of her experience talking to federal employees, Natanson quoted some of the messages she would receive.

“I understand the risks,” one Defense Department worker told her. “But getting the truth and facts out is so much more important.”

Another message, by a Justice Department staff member, read, “I’d never thought I’d be leaking info like this.”