{"id":3202,"date":"2026-02-09T20:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3202"},"modified":"2026-02-09T20:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T01:00:09","slug":"fpf-complaint-targets-prosecutor-over-washington-post-reporter-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/?p=3202","title":{"rendered":"FPF complaint targets prosecutor over Washington Post reporter raid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>On Friday, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed an attorney <a href=\"https:\/\/media.freedom.press\/media\/documents\/Kromberg_1-combined_4.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">disciplinary complaint<\/a> against Gordon Kromberg, the federal prosecutor who reviewed and signed the <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.vaed.588772\/gov.uscourts.vaed.588772.1.0.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">search warrant application<\/a> targeting Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson.<\/p>\n<p>The complaint notes that Kromberg appears to have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/05\/us\/washington-post-reporter-home-search.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KFA.6Emm.6tezrdoKcwRW&amp;smid=nytcore-ios-share\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">violated<\/a> an ethical rule that requires lawyers to reveal relevant legal authority to the court, even if it undermines their arguments. Recently unsealed court records disclose what many <a href=\"https:\/\/freedom.press\/issues\/fbi-ignores-federal-law-to-raid-journalists-home\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">suspected<\/a>: The government failed to alert the court that authorized the warrant to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/archives\/jm\/criminal-resource-manual-661-privacy-protection-act-1980\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Protection Act of 1980<\/a>, a federal law that, in most cases, forbids the use of search warrants for journalistic work product and documentary materials.<\/p>\n<p>The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for FPF:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cKromberg and the government omitted a federal law that should have prohibited the raid of Hannah Natanson\u2019s home when applying for a search warrant. That choice now threatens to expose Natanson\u2019s sources and cripple her ability to report, while also sending a warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide.<br \/>\u201cDisciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else. When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/media.freedom.press\/media\/documents\/Kromberg_1-combined_4.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Read the complaint here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed an attorney disciplinary complaint against Gordon Kromberg, the federal prosecutor who reviewed and signed the search warrant application targeting Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. The complaint notes that Kromberg appears to have violated an ethical rule that requires lawyers to reveal relevant legal authority to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[742],"class_list":["post-3202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ciencia-y-tecnologia","tag-vr-news-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vr-news.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}