FBI Washington Post search warrant classified documents.

Federal prosecutors say a Pentagon contractor has been indicted on charges that he illegally handled classified national defense information that he took home from work and later gave to a news reporter. The Justice Department announced the indictment of Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones in a news release that didn’t identify the reporter or the reporter’s employer. But the case against Perez-Lugones previously has been linked to the search of a Washington Post reporter’s Virginia home last week. According to prosecutors, a grand jury indicted Perez-Lugones on five counts of unlawfully transmitting and one count of unlawfully retaining classified national defense information.

The Washington Post has asked a federal court for an order requiring federal authorities to return electronic devices that they seized from a Post reporter’s Virginia home last week. In a court filing Wednesday, the newspaper argued that the federal government’s search and seizures violated reporter Hannah Natanson’s First Amendment free speech rights and legal safeguards for journalists. Federal agents seized two phones, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin watch from Natanson’s home last Wednesday as part of an investigation of a Pentagon contractor accused of illegally handling classified information.