Second judge rules Trump administration can't review reporter's devices

A federal judge kept an order in place barring President Donald Trump's administration from reviewing devices seized in the FBI’s raid of a Washington Post reporter’s home as part of a leak investigation in January.  

U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga’s May 4 order said a previous ruling, which declared that the court would conduct the review to determine what, if any, content is relevant to the investigation, “was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law.”  

The FBI executed a search warrant at reporter Hannah Natanson’s home on Jan. 14 as part of a probe into Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified documents. Devices including a phone and both a work and personal laptop were seized in the search.  

Allowing the government to review the materials  “is the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse,” U.S. District Judge William Porter wrote in his Feb. 24 order.   

Trump’s administration appealed the order in March and said the government should be permitted to search the devices using a “filter protocol” that would “'segregate information that is outside the warrant’s scope, privileged, or otherwise protected, and would send all other information within the scope of the warrant to the prosecution team.'"

Trenga rejected the federal government's arguments, keeping Porter's order in place as litigation continues.

Natanson was among a group of Washington Post reporters who were awarded a Pulitzer Prize on May 4 for their coverage of the federal workforce and now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency.  

USA TODAY reached out to the Department of Justice and The Washington Post for comment.  

BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected]. 

USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.