A former Army employee with Top Secret clearance has been arrested and charged with unlawfully sharing classified national defense information with people not authorized to receive it, according to the Justice Department.
The Justice Department said Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram, North Carolina, was arrested Tuesday and indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury. Prosecutors allege the disclosures included communications with a journalist.
The DOJ said Williams worked for a special military unit from 2010 to 2016 and held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance, which is a designation for access to classified information that requires special handling and protection.
Prosecutors said the two spent more than 10 hours on phone calls and exchanged more than 180 messages. The journalist later published a book and an article that named Williams as a source and gave her credit for what she said.
Prosecutors allege some of those statements contained classified national defense information. They also said Williams shared national defense information on social media. The FBI’s Charlotte Field Office is investigating the case.
Federal prosecutors in North Carolina and attorneys from the Justice Department’s National Security Division are handling it.
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