NEW: Alleged Pentagon Leaker Arrested By FBI Recognized In Court docket Filings
The former employee of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) who was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday for allegedly leaking Pentagon secrets
has been identified as Courtney Williams, a 40-year-old former employee of a U.S. Army Special Military Unit (SMU) from Wagram, North Carolina.
Williams was taken into custody on Tuesday, April 7 and indicted the following day by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina on charges of communicating and transmitting national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act.
The charges allege that she disclosed classified information, marked as “SECRET” and including specific tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by the SMU stationed at Fort Bragg, to a journalist who was not authorized to receive it. The journalist later incorporated some of the material into a published article and a book, prosecutors said.
Court documents state that Williams worked for the SMU from 2010 to 2016 as a civilian operational support technician and held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance during that period. In that role she had daily access to a broad range of classified national defense information.
She signed a classified nondisclosure agreement at the start and end of her employment, in which she acknowledged that unauthorized disclosure could constitute a criminal offense. After 2016 she transferred to a position that did not require access to classified material.
According to the criminal complaint and FBI affidavit, between 2022 and 2025 Williams communicated repeatedly with the journalist — identified in reporting as Seth Harp — through more than 180 text messages and over 10 hours of telephone calls. The government alleges that during these exchanges she provided documents, photographs, notes, and other information that included classified national defense details.
The government alleges that during these exchanges she provided documents, photographs, notes, and other information that included classified national defense details. Harp, an investigative reporter and contributing editor at Rolling Stone, published a book titled The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces on August 12, 2025.
The book and a related Politico article drew on interviews with Williams and attributed certain statements and information to her. Court filings note that the SMU reviewed the published material and determined that it contained classified information.
Prosecutors have cited specific text messages from Williams as evidence of her awareness of the sensitivity of the disclosures. “Other than a few factual errors, I would definitely have been concerned with the amount of classified information being disclosed…. it feels like an entire TTP (tactics, techniques, and procedures) was sent out in my name giving them a chance to legally persecute me,” Wlliams texted the journalist on the day of the book’s release.
She also texted a family member expressing concern that she might be arrested “for disclosing classified information.”
NEW: U.S. Army veteran Courtney Williams charged with leaking classified information to a journalist pic.twitter.com/cZzhbgiI1Y
— BNO News (@BNONews) April 8, 2026
Williams made an initial appearance in federal court in Raleigh on Wednesday.
A magistrate judge ordered her temporarily detained by the U.S. Marshals Service pending a detention hearing scheduled for the following week. She has been appointed a federal public defender, though no attorney has yet entered a formal appearance on the public docket and no statements from defense counsel were available as of this report.
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