The arrest is \u201ca message to any would-be leakers,\u201d FBI director Kash Patel has said<\/p>\n
A US Army veteran who worked with the elite Delta Force commando unit has been charged with providing top secret data to a reporter, the US Department of Justice has said.
\nCourtney Williams of Wagram, North Carolina was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday over \u201cher alleged transmission of classified national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, including a journalist,\u201d the DOJ said in a statement. The preliminary charge against the 40-year-old carries a penalty of up to ten years in prison.
\nThe court filings did not name the reporter in question, but Politico and other outlets identified him as Seth Harp, author of the 2025 non-fiction book \u2018The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces\u2019.
\nWilliams, who held a position providing paperwork allowing special operations troops to covertly deploy abroad between 2010 and 2016, is mentioned as a source in the book on multiple occasions. It also contains several of her photos.<\/p>\n
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According to Harp, the woman went through years of \u201cvicious harassment\u201d of a sexual nature while working at the Fort Bragg base in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
\nThe DOJ said that the veteran held a \u2018Top Secret\/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance\u2019 and signed non-disclosure agreements when she joined and departed her unit.
\nWilliams will remain in custody at least until Monday, when the judge is scheduled to decide on the request by the prosecutors to keep her detained pending trial.
\nFBI director Kash Patel said in a post on X on Thursday that Williams\u2019 arrest was the result of \u201coutstanding work\u201d by his agency\u2019s operatives.
\n\u201cLet this serve as a message to any would-be leakers: we\u2019re working these cases, and we\u2019re making arrests. This FBI will not tolerate those who seek to betray our country and put Americans in harm\u2019s way,\u201d Patel wrote.
\nHarp called the veteran\u2019s indictment \u201can outrage,\u201d arguing that \u201c[President Donald] Trump\u2019s unhinged DOJ will not even say what \u2018classified information\u2019 she allegedly leaked.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe FBI is incapable of solving real crimes, like all the murders on Fort Bragg involving elite soldiers trafficking drugs, so they settle for retaliating against courageous whistleblowers like Courtney Williams, whose only \u2018crime\u2019 was telling the truth about Delta Force,\u201d the journalist wrote on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The arrest is \u201ca message to any would-be leakers,\u201d FBI director Kash Patel has said A US Army veteran who worked with the elite Delta Force commando unit has been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t