A North Carolina woman with ties to Fort Bragg is facing federal charges after being accused of leaking classified military information to a journalist. Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram — a small community in Scotland County just south of the Sandhills — was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday and indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on charges of willfully transmitting national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act.
The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office with support from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Who Is Courtney Williams and What Is She Accused Of?
According to the Department of Justice, Williams worked as an operational support specialist at Fort Bragg from 2010 to 2016, assigned to a Special Military Unit — widely reported to be Delta Force, the Army’s elite counterterrorism unit. She held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, giving her access to highly sensitive operational details including classified tactics, techniques, and procedures used in covert missions.
Prosecutors allege that between 2022 and 2025, Williams repeatedly communicated with a journalist — logging more than ten hours of phone calls and exchanging over 180 text messages. The journalist later published a book and a magazine article that named Williams as a source and attributed statements to her that federal prosecutors say contained classified national defense information. Williams also allegedly made unauthorized disclosures on her personal social media accounts.
The journalist is not named in court documents, but reporting and details from the case closely match journalist Seth Harp, who published a book titled “The Fort Bragg Cartel” in August 2025 alongside an excerpt in Politico magazine. In the book and article, Williams described experiencing sexual harassment and gender discrimination during her time with the unit at Fort Bragg.
What Williams Said Before Her Arrest
Court documents reveal Williams appeared aware of the legal risk she was taking. In messages to her mother, she wrote that she might be arrested for disclosing classified information, and in another message said she was “probably going to jail for life.” On the day the book and article were published, she texted the journalist expressing concern about the volume of classified material that had been disclosed.
Harp, the journalist, pushed back on the charges in a statement, calling Williams a whistleblower who exposed sexual harassment and discrimination inside Delta Force and describing the prosecution as retaliation. Williams is being represented by the federal public defender in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
What This Means for the Fort Bragg Community
Fort Bragg — now known as Fort Liberty — is one of the largest military installations in the world and a cornerstone of the Sandhills region’s economy and identity. Cases like this carry weight locally, touching both the military community and surrounding counties including Moore, Hoke, and Scotland.
If convicted, Williams faces federal prison time. The case is being prosecuted by the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section alongside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
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