Washington Post readers are blasting the paper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, for staying silent after the FBI conducted a shock search of the home of a reporter digging into the Trump administration.
Hannah Natanson, a reporter dubbed the Post’s “federal government whisperer,” said Wednesday that the FBI searched her home in Alexandria, Virginia—a move critics decried as a crackdown on press freedom.
The Post was among the numerous outlets reporting on the search, but readers quickly noticed that Amazon CEO Bezos remained silent. Within hours of the paper publishing an article about the search, more than a thousand comments flooded the site, many aimed squarely at the billionaire owner.
“Happy now, Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post? You hastened the death of Democracy. It is very dark….” one commenter with more than 500 upvotes wrote.
Another top comment read: “Coming in 3, 2, 1: A Bezos-ordered, and weirdly written, editorial saying Trump had every right to ransack the Post reporter’s stuff.”
“Ooohhh! Jeff’s going to be maaaaddd……at the reporter!” another subscriber quipped.
The backlash grew so intense that comments were briefly disabled before being restored roughly 30 minutes later. The Daily Beast has contacted the Washington Post for comment.
During the FBI search, agents checked 29-year-old Natanson’s devices and seized a phone, a Garmin watch, and two laptops: her personal computer and one owned by the Post. Natanson was reportedly told she was not the focus of the investigation, and that the seizure of her devices followed the paper’s investigation into “a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials.”
Some readers expressed concern for Natanson’s safety alongside their criticism.
“All of Jeff’s money and all those paid bribes and he couldn’t spare his employees lives,” one reader wrote. “I hope she’s safe and they didn’t assault her like they’ve been assaulting other U.S. citizen women.”
This is not the first time readers have revolted against Bezos, who has frequently been accused of using his ownership of the Post to steer its journalism in a MAGA-friendly direction.
The Post reportedly lost roughly 250,000 subscribers in October 2024 after Bezos scrapped a planned editorial board endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race.
Bezos has repeatedly courted Trump, including donating $1 million to his inauguration fund and offering Melania Trump a reported $40 million for the rights to her documentary.
The paper’s opinion section has also taken a sharp right turn after Bezos announced it would refocus on “personal liberties and free markets”—a shift that sparked a petition signed by more than 400 staff members opposing the change.
Three high-profile liberal columnists subsequently departed, including longtime columnist Karen Attiah, who said she was fired over posts she made following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The Post soon hired three conservative writers, and its editorial board has since rallied behind several of the president’s most controversial moves, including his dismantling of the White House’s historic East Wing.
Trump has repeatedly targeted the Post and warned the paper it “ought to clean up their act” ahead of the 2024 election. But in March last year, Trump effusively praised Bezos’ makeover of the paper.
“A guy like Bezos, I’ve gotten to know him, and I think he’s trying to do a real job,” Trump said. “Jeff Bezos is trying to do a real job with The Washington Post, and that wasn’t happening before.”
Natanson, however, has continued her critical coverage of the Trump administration. The D.C. native penned a first-person account detailing the rigors of covering Trump on Christmas Eve, writing that her fiancé urged her to stop fielding late-night calls and texts from federal workers “who wanted to tell me how President Donald Trump was rewriting their workplace policies, firing their colleagues or transforming their agency’s missions.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the FBI and Natanson for comment.
