Former SOCOM worker arrested for allegedly leaking classified information to media: Suspect named

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FBI Director Kash Patel announced Wednesday that his office has arrested a former United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) employee who has been accused of leaking classified information to the press.

The Justice Department identified the suspect as Courtney Williams, who was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday. She held a Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance from 2010 to 2016.

“Clearance holders accept a solemn obligation to protect the classified information entrusted to them,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said. “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.”

Court documents accuse Williams of communicating information to a journalist between 2022 and 2025 in violation of 18 U.S.Code § 793(d). The pair allegedly had 10 hours of telephone calls and exchanged more than 180 messages.

Patel said the arrest was made with help from the Justice Department, the FBI’s Charlotte office and the FBI Counterintelligence & Espionage Division.

“FBI and our partners have arrested a former SOCOM employee, who supported our top-level military warfighters, for allegedly transmitting classified information to a member of the media,” Patel wrote on X.

“Let this serve as a message to any would-be leakers: we’re working these cases, and we’re making arrests,” he continued. “This FBI will not tolerate those who seek to betray our country and put Americans in harm’s way.”

It comes after President Donald Trump threatened to jail the person responsible for divulging to the media that the U.S. was searching for the second crewman of a downed F-15 plane last week, which he said alerted Iranians to the search and made the U.S. recovery more difficult.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.