A former soldier and employee at Fort Bragg was arrested and charged with leaking classified information about Delta Force to a journalist.
Courtney Williams, 40, worked for Delta Force from 2010 to 2016 and possessed a top-secret security clearance, according to the Department of Justice. She is accused by prosecutors of having leaked classified information from 2022 to 2025 about the U.S. Army’s top special operations unit to journalist Seth Harp, who published some of the information in his 2025 book, The Fort Bragg Cartel.
Between 2022 and 2025, Williams and Harp communicated via over 10 hours of telephone calls and over 180 messages, according to the DOJ. The department said that some of the statements attributed to her in the book and posted on social media contained classified national defense information.
Messages obtained by prosecutors included one from the day the book was published, in which she directly acknowledged sharing classified information.
“Other than a few factual errors, I would definitely have been concerned with the amount of classified information being disclosed. I thought the things I was telling you so you could have a better general understanding how the [SMU] was set up or operated would not be published and it feels like an entire TTP was sent out in my name giving them a chance to legally persecute me and probably [Person 1],” Williams said, referring to a Politico article that included an excerpt from the book.
In other messages to a third party, Williams said she “might actually get arrested … for disclosing classified information,” and to another third party said she was “probably going to jail for life.”
“Clearance holders accept a solemn obligation to protect the classified information entrusted to them,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a press release. “That they do so is critical to the security of our Nation. When clearance holders violate that trust, the National Security Division will act swiftly to hold them accountable.”
“We trust our war-fighting individuals to cooperate as a team to protect our military and country,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina Ellis Boyle said. “We will pursue criminal charges to keep these warriors safe whenever we find leakers exalting their own feelings over the safety of the United States.”
Reid Davis, the FBI special agent in charge in North Carolina, argued that her particular disclosures were especially harmful to the U.S.
“The tradecraft, tactics, and techniques used by the U.S. military unit in this case are classified and should be shared only with those with proper clearances and a need to know in order to protect American lives and safeguard classified National Defense information,” the agent said. “These are serious accusations. Anyone divulging information they vowed to protect to a reporter for publication is reckless, self-serving, and damages our nation’s security.”
In a statement obtained by WRAL News, Harp defended Williams.
“Courtney Williams is a brave whistleblower and truth-teller. Former Delta Force operators disclose ‘national defense information’ on podcasts and YouTube shows every day, but the government is going after Courtney for the sole reason that she exposed sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the unit. This is a vindictive act of retaliation, plain and simple,” he said.
WHAT IS THE DELTA FORCE? THE US MILITARY UNIT BEHIND THE VENEZUELA RAID TOPPLING MADURO
Williams complained in Harp’s book that she was sexually harassed and discriminated against based on her sex during her time in Fort Bragg. She alleged that Delta Force encourages a toxic work environment with drinking, drug use, and sexual harassment rampant.
Five months after Harp’s book was published, the secretive Delta Force would reach the height of its popularity after its commandos captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from Caracas in a nighttime raid.
