The Justice Department announced Wednesday that the FBI had arrested a stale Navy employee whom federal prosecutors accused of leaking classified knowledge to a journalist.
Courtney Williams, 40, of North Carolina, change into as soon as arrested Tuesday and charged Wednesday with transmitting “classified national protection knowledge to folks no longer licensed to bag it, including a journalist.”
Williams held high secret safety clearance for her work with the protection power from 2010 to 2016, the Justice Department acknowledged in a knowledge liberate. Court docket paperwork inform that Williams communicated with a journalist from 2022 to 2025, all in which they had “over 10 hours of phone calls and exchanged bigger than 180 messages.”
The journalist, who’s never any longer named in court paperwork, informed Williams that they were in quest of details about her protection power unit in reference to an upcoming article and book, court paperwork snort. The prison complaint says Williams change into as soon as mentioned by name in both an editorial and a book by the identical journalist published on the identical day — Aug. 12, 2025.
Williams change into as soon as named in a 2025 book by Seth Harp, titled “The Citadel Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Damage within the Particular Forces,” published by Viking Press, an sign of Penguin Random Condominium. Harp also named her in a Politico Journal myth. Both were published Aug. 12.
The prison complaint acknowledged that on the day the article and the book were published, Williams and the journalist exchanged texts whereby Williams acknowledged she change into as soon as “concerned with the amount of classified knowledge being disclosed.”
Harp’s biography on Penguin’s net online page online identifies him as an investigative reporter and distant places correspondent and a contributing editor at Rolling Stone who has written for several publications. He is an Navy used and a lawyer who change into as soon as an assistant legal official commonplace of Texas, basically based totally on his bio.
Essentially based totally on court paperwork, Williams is being represented by the federal public defender within the Eastern District of North Carolina, which did no longer straight away respond to a inquire of for observation Wednesday night.
Williams wrote that she “would possibly perchance perchance acquire arrested…for disclosing classified knowledge” in messages with her mother, the complaint says. She then cited a statutory provision of the Espionage Act, basically based totally on the complaint.
“I’d if truth be told acquire arrested, and I don’t even acquire a free reproduction of the book,” Williams is presupposed to comprise informed her mother.
The journal article in August runt print Williams’ abilities whereas she change into as soon as working at Citadel Bragg, the headquarters of Joint Particular Operations Expose, saying she change into as soon as employed as mission reinforce for the covert unit Delta Pressure.
The article acknowledged Williams described being sexually burdened and belittled by the males in her unit, including its commander. Williams therefore filed grievances with the Navy Particular Operations Expose inspector commonplace and a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which resulted in retaliation and at closing her safety clearance’s being stripped, the article acknowledged, including that Williams acknowledged she sooner or later settled with the protection power.
Harp acknowledged in a remark posted to social media Wednesday night that Williams “is a courageous whistleblower who uncovered rampant gender discrimination and sexual harassment within the US Navy’s Delta Pressure.”
“Unlike many of my sources, she change into as soon as adamant that she be quoted by name and made no are trying to veil her id on narrative of her actions were entirely above-board, legit, and admirable,” Harp wrote.
He added that Williams change into as soon as indicted no longer to give protection to classified knowledge “but to retaliate in opposition to a ladies who most efficient sought to toughen workplace stipulations for female troopers and civilian workers of the protection power.”
The Defense Department directed inquiries referring to the topic to the Navy, which did no longer straight away respond to a inquire of for observation Wednesday night. Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell acknowledged in an announcement published within the August journal article that “this Department has a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of harassment.”
Viking Press did no longer straight away respond to a inquire of for observation Wednesday night. Politico declined to manufacture a observation.
Williams change into as soon as arrested days after President Donald Trump threatened to prison journalists at a media outlet that reported that an airman change into as soon as lacking after an American fighter jet change into as soon as shot down in Iran closing week.
Trump acknowledged he change into as soon as having a leer whoever leaked knowledge referring to the airman and would stress the knowledge media to again.
“We train we’ll have the option to search out it out,” he acknowledged. “Because we’re going to trudge to the media firm that released it, and we’re going to train: ‘Nationwide safety. Give it up or trudge to prison.’”
