Possible leaker to Washington Post told officers he ‘mishandled classified information,’ DOJ says

By Katelyn Polantz, Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — The longtime government contractor whose activity prompted the controversial search of a Washington Post reporter’s home acknowledged he mishandled classified information, prosecutors said, according to a court hearing transcript obtained by CNN.

Aurelio Perez-Lugones told federal investigators he was angry about “recent government activity,” Assistant US Attorney Patricia McLane said during a detention hearing Monday.

“He admitted to federal officers that he mishandled classified information,” McLane added.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that an alleged leaker of information about Venezuela was in custody, although the Justice Department has not said it was in connection to Venezuela in court filings.

Perez-Lugones, a former member of the US Navy, had long been a rule-follower until he intentionally put classified information on papers in a lunchbox in his car and in his home beginning in October of last year until last week, when he was searched, McLane said.

He was arrested and charged by criminal complaint with one count of unlawful retention of national defense information late last week. He currently remains behind bars but is challenging his ongoing detention and appeared in court Thursday. He hasn’t been formally indicted and thus hasn’t entered a plea in response to the allegations. CNN has reached out to his attorneys for comment on his alleged comments to federal agents.

Perez-Lugones’ attorneys pushed back Thursday on the government’s assertions that he needed to be locked up because he is in their view a threat to national security, arguing that the charges are over the narrow allegation that he retained classified documents and do not, at this time, include allegations that he shared any classified information.

“Indeed, there are no allegations that Mr. Perez-Lugones – during his decades-long career in positions requiring a security clearance – has ever inappropriately used information that he had knowledge of,” they wrote in court papers.

The criminal investigation into Perez-Lugones has raised significant questions around the Justice Department’s reasoning for subsequently searching the Post reporter’s home and seizing her electronics – a step rarely taken and widely criticized by both executive branch and congressional figures in past administrations.

The Justice Department said that Perez-Lugones could be motivated to continue leaking information out of his unhappiness with US policy.

“He has expressed exasperation for the current conditions in America,” McLane said at Monday’s hearing, according to the transcript.

“Even if the court restricted his use of electronics and cell phones, he could communicate the information stored in his head. And the defendant has demonstrated not just the ability, but the motive to do so,” she added.

More details on why the Justice Department was prompted this week to search a Washington Post reporter’s home and seize her personal laptop, work laptop, a Garmin watch and her cell phone, extreme steps that have alarmed press freedom advocates, are still not available.

But one influential First Amendment advocacy group, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, asked a federal judge to unseal the Justice Department’s applications to search the home of the reporter, Hannah Natanson.

“The public is therefore left with no means to understand the government’s basis for seeking (and a federal court’s basis for approving) a search with dramatic implications for a free press and the constitutional rights of journalists,” the Reporters Committee’s lawyers wrote in their filing late Wednesday.

Natanson hasn’t been charged with any crime and the Washington Post has defended her reporting.

Trump administration officials, including the attorney general and FBI director, have condemned the press for obtaining national security information, setting off further alarm bells throughout First Amendment watchdogs and news organizations.

CNN’s Brian Stelter contributed to this report.

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