Bar Punts on Ethics Complaint Over Application to Search Reporter’s Home; The New York Times, February 12, 2026

Charlie Savage, The New York Times; Bar Punts on Ethics Complaint Over Application to Search Reporter’s Home

A press freedom group accused a prosecutor of violating an ethics rule by not telling a judge about a law limiting searches for journalistic work product.

"The Virginia State Bar has told a press freedom organization that it is up to a judge to decide whether a federal prosecutor mishandled an application for a warrant last month to search the home of a Washington Post reporter as part of a leak investigation.

The group, Freedom of the Press Foundation, had filed a disciplinary complaint with the bar against the prosecutor, Gordon D. Kromberg. It cited his failure to alert the magistrate judge, who approved the search warrant, about the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which limits searches for journalistic work product.

But in an unsigned letter viewed by The New York Times, the state bar said the judge, William B. Porter of the Eastern District of Virginia, had to evaluate the omission."

Failure to Alert Judge to Press Law for Reporter Search Draws Ethical Scrutiny; The New York Times, February 5, 2026

Charlie Savage , The New York Times; Failure to Alert Judge to Press Law for Reporter Search Draws Ethical Scrutiny

"The disclosure that the Justice Department failed to alert a judge about a 1980 law protecting journalists when applying for a warrant to search a Washington Post reporter’s home last month is casting new scrutiny on the legal issues raised by the raid.

Specialists in legal ethics said that if the prosecutor who submitted the application, Gordon D. Kromberg, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, knew about the 1980 law, the failure to bring it up violated a longstanding legal ethics rule.

The Justice Department and Mr. Kromberg did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did lawyers for The Post and its reporter.

Here is a closer look."