Agents searched journalist Hannah Natanson’s home in suburban Alexandria, Va., a source familiar with the matter told The Post.

Natanson covers the federal workforce for the newspaper and described herself as “the federal government whisperer” in a Dec. 24 first-person piece about her time reporting on President Trump’s attempts to downsize the DC bureaucracy.

“We can’t talk,” a man who answered the door of Natanson’s home — and matches the appearance of a man in her X account’s banner picture — told the Post Wednesday.

Agents seized Natanson’s phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch, according to the Washington Post.

One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Washington Post-issued device.

The target of the investigation is Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a Maryland system administrator who has a top-secret security clearance, the newspaper reported. Perez-Lugones is accused of taking home classified intelligence reports.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on X the leaker “is currently behind bars.”

“This past week, at the request of the Department of War, the Department of Justice and FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post journalist who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor,” she added.

“The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country.”

Perez-Lugones has a “Top Secret” security clearance and works as a systems engineer and IT specialist for a government subcontractor in Annapolis Junction, Md., according to a criminal complaint filed in Maryland federal court on Jan. 9.

An affidavit from an FBI special agent accompanying the complaint alleged that he accessed databases “maintained by several Government agencies” to “view a classified intelligence report related to a foreign country.”

Perez-Lugones then took screenshots of the report and pasted them into a Microsoft word document that he printed out on Oct. 28, 2025, even though he “had no need to know and was not authorized to search for” its contents, the affidavit stated.

Between Jan. 5 and 7, he also viewed other classified material and took notes on a yellow legal pad, at least four pages of which he took home.

Perez-Lugones then took screenshots of the report and pasted them into a Microsoft word document that he printed out on Oct. 28, 2025, even though he “had no need to know and was not authorized to search for” its contents, the affidavit stated.

Federal agents executed a search warrant on Perez-Lugones’ Laurel, Md., residence on Jan. 8 and discovered “multiple documents that were marked SECRET,” per the affidavit.

FBI special agent Keith Starr, who authored the affidavit, concluded: “One or more of these documents are related to national defense.”

Perez-Lugones now faces a maximum of 10 years in prison upon conviction for the charge of “unlawful retention of national defense information.

The Department of Justice argued in court filings for Perez-Lugones to be detained after a magistrate judge initially drafted conditional terms of pre-trial release for the defendant.

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