Hey. Wake Up.

A very short Gene Pool today. The following story is taken from today’s New York Times and Washington Post — I have combined them, taking parts from each.

F.B.I. Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist for Classified Material

—

F.B.I. agents conducted a search at the home of a Washington Post reporter on Wednesday, as part of what officials said was an investigation into the possible sharing of government secrets.

The reporter, Hannah Natanson, has spent the past year covering the Trump administration’s effort to fire federal workers and redirect much of the work force to enforcing his agenda. Many of those employees shared with her their anger, frustration and fear with the administration’s changes.

Federal agents searched her home and her devices, seizing her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch. One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Washington Post-issued laptop.

It is exceptionally rare for law enforcement officials to conduct searches at reporters’ homes. Federal regulations intended to protect a free press are designed to make it difficult to use aggressive law enforcement tactics against reporters to obtain the identities of their sources or information.

The search warrant and related F.B.I. affidavit indicated that law enforcement was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of gaining access to and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox.

In a recent first-person account of her experience talking to federal employees, Ms. Natanson quoted some of the messages she received from them.

“I understand the risks,” one Defense Department worker told her. “But getting the truth and facts out is so much more important.”

A staff member at the Justice Department wrote, “I’d never thought I’d be leaking info like this.”

—

Okay, just so you understand:

This has nothing to do with an investigation of a man accused of stealing classified documents. That is a pretext. This is about intimidation. It is about the Trump regime trying to find out who was leaking information to Hannah Natanson, so they can fire those people and/or put them in prison. Period.

If you doubt that even for a moment, read or re-read Natanson’s story. It is extraordinary; you will see exactly what the Trump regime is afraid of. They are afraid of Hannah, who is a great reporter, an elegant writer, and, above all, a caring person. They are afraid of their own underlings, professionals who are first-hand witnesses to their malfeasances They are afraid of exposure, and they are abusing and distorting the power of government in order to prevent it.

We are already living in a dictatorship.

—