By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge ripped into the Justice Department on Friday for failing to inform him of the applicability of a law intended to protect journalists from government searches and seizures when it asked him for permission to raid a Washington Post reporter’s home earlier this year.

“How could you miss it? How could you think it doesn’t apply?” Magistrate Judge William Porter asked a DOJ lawyer during a hearing in Alexandria, Virginia.

“I find it hard to be that in any way this law did not apply,” Porter added later.

The judge said during the hearing that he had declined to approve the warrant for materials from reporter Hannah Natanson several other times.

“I find it hard to be that in any way this law did not apply,” Porter added later.

Justice Department attorney Christian Dibblee argued that the decision was made by department officials several rungs above him, but that he understood the judge’s “frustration.”

Porter shot back: “That’s minimizing it!”

“Ms. Natanson has been deprived of basically her life’s work,” Porter said during the hearing, echoing comments from her lawyer that she’s been unable to continue reporting and gathering confidential sources following the raid.

The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 is intended to protect journalists and newsrooms from government searches and seizures of a reporter’s work product materials unless the reporter is themself the subject of a criminal investigation or prosecution.

CNN has previously reported that the Post reporter, Natanson, is not under investigation. But her communications with a government contractor who was charged with illegally leaking classified information are what led prosecutors to ask Porter to approve a search warrant for her Virginia home.

Last month, federal agents arrived at Natanson’s home and seized a phone, two computers and a Garmin watch were seized. After Natanson and the Post sued in an effort to get the devices back, Porter temporarily blocked investigators from examining them.

Dibblee and DOJ attorney Gordon Kromberg tried to tell Porter on Friday that the department didn’t believe the law was applicable in this case, with Dibblee at one point saying it’s not the kind of “adverse authority” that lawyers are typically required to raise with a court when making requests for such warrants.

“You don’t think you have an obligation to say that?” Porter said at one point. “I’m a little frustrated with how the process went down.”

The alleged leaker, Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, pleaded not guilty late last month to five counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information to Natanson through an encrypted messaging application and a single count of unlawfully retaining the defense information.

Press freedom advocates have raised alarm bells over the non-disclosure of the law, decrying the decision as a significant assault on key protections for newsrooms.

“The government appears to have ignored a crucial press freedom guardrail in searching a journalist’s home and did not alert the magistrate judge to the law’s application in this case, let alone show how or if it had complied with the statute’s considerable protections,” Gabe Rottman, the vice president of policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said earlier this month.

Porter is weighing a request from Natanson and the Post for him to order the government to return the seized devices and data back to them or set up a process through which the massive volume of information can be reviewed and the materials that relate to Perez-Lugones’ can be separated from information that is not relevant to his case.

He appeared sympathetic to the reporter’s argument that the gov

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By Rachel Tashjian, CNN

(CNN) — First Lady Melania Trump stood in front of reporters, supporters and colleagues at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History on Friday in an ensemble of frosty wealth essentials – a Bottega Veneta peacoat, leather leggings and Christian Louboutin snakeskin heels – and extolled the virtues of a slash of black fabric that zigzagged across the white column gown she wore for her husband’s second inauguration as president, just over a year ago.

This was no mere ruffle or adornment; it was a black silk gazar summation of her biography, as imagined by her longtime stylist, designer Herve Pierre. “The meticulously formed black shape ‘Z’ on the front bodice summons decades of my early memories, life experiences, and influences,” she said. “And all of these stories are tucked deep within its crisp, strong seams — forever.”

Trump was there to celebrate the addition of her gown to the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s First Ladies Collection – a tradition that dates back over 100 years and has resulted in one of the museum’s most popular exhibitions. The museum’s director Anthea Hartig praised the historic nature of the moment, which she said would “help pave a new path as Mrs. Trump becomes the only modern first lady to serve two nonconsecutive terms,” sentiments the museum’s secretary, Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III, echoed. “This is really a milestone in its own right — the first First Lady to be represented by two inaugural gowns in the more than 100 years of this museum.”

(Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump’s recurring fisticuffs with the Smithsonian, which led to the removal of text mentioning the president’s two impeachments from the National Portrait Gallery, and to artist Amy Sherald canceling a retrospective in fear of censorship, went unmentioned.)

Since Helen Taft first donated her 1909 inauguration gown to the museum in 1912, the Smithsonian has assembled more than two dozen dresses, among other pieces, from first ladies’ wardrobes. Bunch called the first ladies exhibition “as much a timeline on American history as it is a look on fashion.” There is Michelle Obama’s goddess-like 2009 white inauguration gown embellished with flowers, which made previously unknown American designer Jason Wu a fashion star; and the staid velvet and satin blue gown Barbara Bush wore for her husband’s inauguration in 1989, back when designer Arnold Scassi was the go-to society designer for an old money set that treasured looking a bit upholstered. Each of these looks reveals the priorities and ideals of their administration, in their color, mood and silhouette. Time goes on and a sleeve begins to look comically dated and then, a few years later, it is perhaps beautiful again. Like a president’s record, a dress’s meaning becomes more nuanced and reconsidered over the years. We reward ourselves, and our understanding of our past, by reassessing time and time again.

Perhaps no first lady has been as meticulous about her style choices as Melania Trump. While first ladies tend to demure from too much fashion chatter, lamenting the public focus on something so artificial, Trump has viewed it as, if not one of her most powerful tools, then her most treasured one. “Personally, I relish the entire design process, from start to finish,” she said on Friday. “It takes time, it’s slow, but the end result is always magical. If you had a chance to see my new film, ‘Melania,’ you are well aware of what it took to bring this technical marvel to life.”

Indeed, the most riveting parts of the otherwise blah “Melania” are the extensive fittings Trump undergoes to ensure the correct cut of her Ada

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By Alaa Elassar, Bill Kirkos, CNN

(CNN) — A driver is dead after he rammed a vehicle through the gate of a power substation in Boulder City, Nevada, on Thursday in what authorities are investigating as a terrorism-related event, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The driver, who was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, has been identified as 23-year-old Dawson Maloney of Albany, New York, Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a news conference on Friday.

McMahill said the suspect had recently been reported missing out of New York and had communicated with family members before the incident, making statements referencing self-harm and suggesting he intended to commit an act that would put him “on the news,” including a message to his mother in which he referred to himself as a “dead terrorist son” and said he felt obligated to carry out the attack.

The “critical incident” began late Thursday morning at a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power facility located near Boulder City, according to McMahill.

At approximately 10 a.m., Boulder City police dispatch received a 911 call reporting a vehicle had crashed through a secured gate at the power substation. The caller told dispatchers the driver appeared to be deceased and that gunshots had been heard after the crash, McMahill said.

When officers arrived, they observed a broken perimeter fence consistent with a vehicle being intentionally driven through it. Investigators also saw a debris field leading to a silver Nissan Sentra bearing New York license plates. The vehicle had come to rest against large industrial wire reels inside the facility.

As officers approached the car, they found a deceased male in the driver’s seat with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to McMahill.

Surveillance video shown during the news conference captured the vehicle approaching the facility before crashing through the gate and into the power infrastructure area.

There was no indication of major damage to the facility or any other critical infrastructure, and no service disruptions were reported as a result of the incident, Tim Shay, the chief of Boulder City Police Department, said during the news conference.

McMahill said evidence recovered during the investigation included multiple books related to extremist ideologies — spanning right- and left-wing extremism, environmental extremism, white supremacy and anti-government beliefs — as well as explosive materials and components.

A search of the rental vehicle also uncovered two shotguns, an AR-style pistol, numerous loaded AR magazines and shotgun shells, two devices described as flamethrowers containing thermite material, a crowbar, a hatchet and a cellphone that is currently undergoing forensic analysis, he said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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