On Wednesday morning, the FBI raided the home of Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson in an alarming escalation of the Trump administration’s war on press freedom. The raid can be seen as a direct result of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision last year to reverse media protections for journalists from having their records searched during leak investigations — a decision that was a sham from the start.

The search of Natanson’s home was allegedly part of an investigation into a government contractor, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, who is accused of illegally retaining classified information. Press freedom advocates have said the raid violates federal law and endangers First Amendment freedoms. The Post also received a subpoena related to Perez-Lugones on Wednesday morning, according to the paper’s own reporting.

Bondi laid the groundwork for this problematic search nearly a year ago, when she rescinded Biden-era media guidelines that protected reporters from being compelled to disclose their sources or having their records searched.

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by Freedom of the Press Foundation showed that Bondi’s pretext for reversing these protections was nonsense.

The genesis of Bondi’s evisceration of media protections goes back to reporting on Venezuela last spring that the Trump administration didn’t like. In March 2025, the Trump administration

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