‘A Trauma That You Carry’

An unprecedented attack on press freedom at the Washington Post.

Early on a Monday morning in May of 2023, Tim Burke, an independent journalist, awoke to the sound of FBI agents screaming his name and blinding lights flooding through the front door. His mind went straight to preventing the officers from shooting Jelly, the foster dog he and his wife had just taken in, who was barking up a storm. During the incident, per the US Press Freedom Tracker, the FBI took four cellphones, nine computers, seven storage devices, and four notebooks from Burke’s home after he had posted two unaired clips from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight without permission. The FBI alleged that the footage had been obtained illegally. “They seized an entire operating newsroom,” Burke said.

Burke was taken back to that experience on Wednesday morning, when the FBI executed a search warrant on the home of a Washington Post reporter named Hannah Natanson, seizing her phone, a personal laptop, a company-issued laptop, and a Garmin watch. The Post has reported that Natanson, who has been covering Trump’s impact on the federal workforce, is not the focus of the probe. The administration has said it is investigating a Maryland-based government contractor accused of taking home classified intelligence reports—and who, at the time of his arrest, may have been messaging Natanson. The Post was also subpoenaed for information relating to the contractor.