WASHINGTON – A US Army veteran was charged on April 8 with providing classified information to a journalist for a book that alleged drug trafficking, murder and corruption at a military base where she had worked, the Department of Justice said.

Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram, North Carolina, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to “her alleged transmission of classified national defence information to individuals not authorised to receive it, including a journalist”, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Prosecutors alleged Williams violated a provision of the US Espionage Act.

The case comes as free-speech advocates have raised concerns about the Trump administration’s aggressive posture towards media leaks from government employees upset with US policies and actions.

Williams worked from 2010 to 2016 for a special military unit at the US Army base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and held a “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance”, the Justice Department said.

Prosecutors allege that between 2022 and 2025, Williams repeatedly communicated by phone and text message with a journalist who was seeking information for an article and book about the unit. Williams and the journalist spent more than 10 hours on phone calls and exchanged more than 180 messages, the department said.

While court filings did not identify the reporter, journalist Seth Harp wrote a book published in 2025 titled The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking And Murder In The Special Forces and an accompanying article that named Williams as a source and attributed specific statements to her.

The Justice Department alleged that some of those statements contained “classified national defence information”.

Prosecutors also said Williams made what they called unauthorised disclosures of national defence information through her social media accounts.

A representative for Williams could not immediately be reached for comment.