By raiding a reporter’s home, Trump and his thugs have escalated their attack on a free press

Back in 2012, I wrote an opinion piece for The Huffington Post (now just HuffPost) that I headlined “Obama’s War on Journalism.” The premise was that Barack Obama, like George W. Bush and other presidents before him, was disrespecting the First Amendment’s protection of independent journalism by taking reporters to court and theatening them with jail if they didn’t reveal the identities of White House sources leaking to them.

At least Obama, Bush et al. were following a legal process. As The Associated Press reports, Donald Trump’s FBI, headed by the buffoonish but dangerous Kash Patel, raided the home of a Washington Post journalist to grab what they claimed were classified documents provided by a Pentagon contractor.

Why didn’t Richard Nixon think of that when the Post and The New York Times (and The Boston Globe) were publishing the Pentagon Papers, the government’s own classified history of the Vietnam War? It was so retro of Tricky Dick to go to court. Rather than letting the Supreme Court rule against him and allow publication to resume, he might have instead ordered the Plumbers to break into the offending newsrooms and pilfer the documents.

I should note, too, that Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, issued a ruling early in Biden’s term that the Department of Justice would no longer subpoena reporters or their phone or email records in federal investigations. He also suggested that he might support congressional action to give those protections the weight of the law.

But that was then. Donald Trump is a thorough-going authoritarian, and he’s not going to let the law or precedent stand in his way. Yes, the search was legally conducted; the news media’s right to protect its confidential sources and documents has always been more a matter of custom rather than the Constitution. But those customs and norms are important, as Trump’s thuggish behavior reminds us every day.

The Post reporter, Hannah Natanson, had a phone, two laptops and a watch taken from her Virginia home. White House spokeswoman Karoline Levitt posted on Twitter, “Leaking classified information puts America’s national security and the safety of our military heroes in serious jeopardy. President Trump has zero tolerance for it and will continue to aggressively crack down on these illegal acts moving forward.”

Here’s a round-up of what some other media outlets are saying about this assault on freedom of the press.

► At the media-news site Status, Natalie Korach reports (sub. req.) that the formerly stalwart Post owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos, has been silent since the raid, evidently preferring to maintain his newfound stance of sucking up to Trump rather than defending his newsroom. Following an uncomfortable delay, publisher Will Lewis finally denounced the raid as “outrageous.”

To his credit, executive editor Matt Murray was swift to call the Trump regime’s action “deeply concerning,” saying that it “raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work.” And the Post’s editorial page, which has lurched in a Trump-friendly direction over the past year, called the raid “an aggressive attack on the press freedom of all journalists.”

► Poynter Institute media columnist Tom Jones called the action “extraordinary and damaging,” and noted that retired Post executive editor Marty Baron had taken to Bluesky to call it a “clear and appalling sign that this administration will set no limits on its acts of aggression against an independent press.”

► Mike Blinder, publisher of the trade outlet Editor & Publisher, has written a strong commentary that begins:

There are moments in American history when the country drifts — not suddenly, not always dramatically, but unmistakably. Fear replaces reason. Power consolidates. Institutions hesitate. And the public senses something is off long before it can articulate why.

When historians later trace how the nation corrected course, they often arrive at an uncomfortable truth for those in power: it was not politics that led first. It was journalism.

I am convinced we are at another such moment now.

Blinder’s piece does not mention Wednesday’s incident; I suspect he wrote it before he knew about it. But it’s telling about the moment of peril we find ourselves in that his worries are just as valid even without the latest attack on democracy.

► The CNN Reliable Sources media newsletter, helmed by Brian Stelter, has more from Post editor Matt Murray, citing a source who attended this morning’s news meeting.

“The best thing to do when people are trying to intimidate you is to not be intimidated — and that’s what we did yesterday, Murray reportedly told his staff, adding that “every corner of the Post and the company did everything they could to help Hannah and help understand the challenging situation.”

Every corner, that is, except the one Jeff Bezos occupies.

► Recently I wrote that my goal for Media Nation in 2026 was to write less frequently, offer fewer commentaries about national media and political stories, and double down on developments in local news. I have to say that our authoritarian overlord is making it difficult, but that’s still my ambition. Meanwhile, a reminder that you can follow my Bluesky newsfeed of shorter media items by clicking here.