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WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI brokers searched a Washington Post reporter’s dwelling on Wednesday as section of a leak investigation keen a Pentagon contractor accused of sharing labeled recordsdata, the Justice Department said.

Hannah Natanson, who has been covering President Donald Trump’s transformation of the federal authorities, had a cell phone and a Garmin think seized in the quest of her Virginia dwelling, the Post reported. Natanson has reported widely on the federal team, and now now not too lengthy ago she published a fraction describing how she won hundreds of most modern sources — main one colleague to call her “the federal authorities whisperer.”

Whereas labeled paperwork investigations aren’t uncommon, the quest of a reporter’s dwelling marks an escalation in the authorities’s efforts to crack down on leaks.

“Leaking labeled recordsdata puts The US’s nationwide security and the safety of our military heroes in severe jeopardy,” White Dwelling press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X. “President Trump has zero tolerance for it and will continue to aggressively crack down on these illegal acts transferring ahead.”

An affidavit says the quest used to be connected to an investigation accurate into a system administrator in Maryland who authorities mutter took dwelling labeled experiences, the Post reported. The system administrator, Aurelio Perez-Lugones, used to be charged earlier this month with unlawful retention of nationwide defense recordsdata, in response to courtroom papers.

Perez-Lugones, who held a high secret security clearance, is accused of printing labeled and sensitive experiences at work. In a search of his Maryland dwelling and automotive this month, authorities found paperwork marked “SECRET,” at the side of one in a lunchbox, in response to courtroom papers.

Attorney Common Pam Bondi said the quest used to be done on the quiz of the Defense Department and said the journalist used to be “obtaining and reporting labeled and illegally leaked recordsdata from a Pentagon contractor.”

Trump’s Republican administration “will now now not tolerate illegal leaks of labeled recordsdata that, when reported, pose a grave wretchedness to our Nation’s nationwide security and the courageous males and females who are serving our nation,” Bondi said in a post on X.

An FBI spokesperson declined to verbalize on Wednesday. The Washington Post said Wednesday that it used to be monitoring and reviewing the subject. An e mail looking out out for verbalize used to be sent to lawyers for Perez-Lugones.

The Justice Department over time has developed, and revised, internal guidelines governing the plot in which it is going to answer to news media leaks.

In April, Bondi issued new guidelines announcing prosecutors would all as soon as more relish the authority to exercise subpoenas, courtroom orders and search warrants to hunt for presidency officers who manufacture “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.

The moves rescinded a policy from President Joe Biden’s Democatic administration that safe journalists from having their cell phone recordsdata secretly seized at some level of leak investigations — a tradition lengthy decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.

The aggressive posture on this case stands in distinction to the Justice Department’s come to the disclosure of sensitive military recordsdata through a Signal chat closing spring keen senior Trump administration officers. A reporter used to be mistakenly added to that chat. Bondi indicated publicly on the time that she used to be disinclined to originate an investigation, announcing she used to be confident that the episode had been a mistake.

Bondi also repeated Trump administration talking aspects that the extremely sensitive recordsdata in the chat used to be now now not labeled, despite the indisputable truth that most modern and ragged U.S. officers relish said the posting of the initiating times of plane and the times that bombs would be released before those pilots relish been even in the air would relish been labeled.