FBI agents searched a Washington Post reporter’s home on Wednesday as part of an investigation into sharing secret government information, officials said, ‍in a move that press advocates said threatened journalistic freedom.

The reporter, Hannah Natanson, has covered US President Donald Trump’s campaign to fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers and shift remaining workers to implementing his agenda.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said federal agents had executed the search at the request of the Defence Department. Trump’s Justice Department last year reversed a policy that ⁠had barred prosecutors from seizing records from reporters in most circumstances.

Press freedom advocates called the search a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on news media.

The Washington Post reported that Natanson was present for the search of her Virginia home on Wednesday.

It reported that the search was linked to a criminal case against Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a technology specialist for a US government contractor who was charged last week with unlawful retention of national defence information.