A former Army employee was arrested and charged with allegedly leaking classified information about a covert military force to a reporter, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors allege in a criminal complaint that Courtney Williams of Wagram, North Carolina, divulged classified information to an unnamed reporter between 2022 and 2024 about her time in Delta Force, a U.S. Army Special Military Unit, or SMU.
According to the complaint, Williams worked for the Army between 2010 and 2016 after serving as a contractor and previously enlisting, and held a top secret security clearance. Williams left in 2016, after investigators said she had her access to classified information suspended, “based on an internal investigation” conducted in 2015 and 2016.
She is charged with one count of illegally communicating or transmitting national defense information, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison if convicted. Court records show she was arrested Tuesday and was ordered to be temporarily detained in jail ahead of a preliminary hearing on April 13.
According to an FBI affidavit included in the complaint, Williams and the reporter “discussed William’s employment at the SMU and associated information” in texts and “consistent and extensive phone conversations.” The affidavit also alleges that Williams “provided documents, photographs, notes, and/or other materials to the Journalist, some of which likely contained classified NDI that was subsequently published in the Article and the Book,” through a removable hard drive and emails in ten document batches.
Williams was featured prominently in a Politico article as an on-the-record voice in a story profiling alleged misconduct in Delta Force, a covert military unit where Delta Force is headquartered. That article, by Seth Harp, was adapted from his book, which was to be published shortly after the article. Investigators also said the article includes on-the-record statements from Williams about her time with the unit. Photos of Williams also appear in the report.
In a statement posted to social media late Wednesday, Harp described Williams as a “courageous whistleblower who exposed rampant gender discrimination and sexual harassment” in Delta Force.
“I am confident that the DOJ’s slapdash indictment, full of misleading juxtaposed quotations taken out of context, will fall apart upon careful scrutiny,” Harp said. “In the meantime, Courtney is presumed innocent and is entitled to the due process of the law.”
The FBI affidavit alleges Williams spoke to a reporter on the day the Politico article featuring her was published and says officials overseeing classification of the Special Military Unit “reviewed the information within the Article and determined that it contained information that is properly classified as SECRET.”
After the book was published last August, the prosecutors said Williams texted the reporter that she was “concerned with the amount of classified information being disclosed” in the book,” and that she wrote in a text message to her mother that she feared being arrested “for disclosing classified information.”
In another text message to someone else, prosecutors allege that Williams said she was “probably going to jail for life” for her alleged disclosures.
Williams was appointed a federal defender, but no attorney information was publicly listed in court filings as of Wednesday evening.
In a social media post on X, FBI Director Kash Patel said that William’s arrest should “serve as a message to any would-be leakers: we’re working these cases, and we’re making arrests. This FBI will not tolerate those who seek to betray our country and put Americans in harm’s way.”
