Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram, North Carolina was arrested by the FBI yesterday and indicted today, charged with leaking classified national defense information under 18 U.S.C. § 793(d), a provision of the Espionage Act.
But here’s the backstory that makes this a lot more complicated than a simple leak case.
Williams spent eight years inside Delta Force, one of America’s most secretive military units, where she held a Top Secret/SCI clearance and managed fake identities, cover passports, and front companies for covert operators. She talked to journalist Seth Harp, whose book “The Fort Bragg Cartel” was published in 2025 and included a detailed Politico feature about her experience inside the unit.
What she described in that book: She was one of a group of young, attractive women recruited to fill roles in Delta’s mission support troop, informally known throughout the unit as the “Cover Girls.” Supervisors made graphic sexual comments to her face and directed her to bend over so they could assess whether her underwear was visible through her pants. When she asked about deploying with the unit, her squadron commander told her she was hired for her “assets” and if operators wanted her overseas, it was to gang rape her. When she filed an EEOC complaint, they stripped her security clearance, moved her desk into a storage closet, and assigned her to proofread an 8-million-entry spreadsheet for over a year. She ultimately took a settlement and was medically retired.
