A popular early radio (1930–1954) crime-fighting program, “The Shadow,” began with a distinctive narrator’s voice uttering an iconic opening line, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”
In the aftermath of the arrest of a former US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) civilian employee, Courtney Williams, 40, for an act of betrayal against her country, we can only wonder what evil lurked within her heart.
To become a SOCOM contractor, Williams took an oath of secrecy for life. It was a condition she had to accept before being given access to a range of classified information. There was nothing complex about the arrangement. Williams simply agreed never to say anything about what she learned from being granted access to classified files and personnel and, in exchange, the government would allow her to learn whatever she did while undertaking her specific project requirement.
Between 2010 and 2016, Williams held a top-secret clearance and worked on providing support for elite special operations forces, specifically a “special military unit”—i.e., Delta Force. Under the SOCOM umbrella, she was an operational support technician responsible for “Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures” (TTPs) that were used both in preparation for and during sensitive missions. The work she generated was to support warfighters and, as such, was not only classified as secret, but also as too sensitive to be shared with any foreign country.
Clearly, the last person SOCOM wanted Williams feeding TTP details to was a member of the media. However, between 2022 and 2025 that is exactly what she did, giving them to journalist Seth Harp who was writing a book. The same day the book was published—August 12, 2025—Harp also published an article for Politico magazine promoting it, and letting the TTP cat out of the bag.
An investigation was launched that reviewed over 180 messages and ten hours of phone calls between Harp and Williams, leading to the latter being charged with the unauthorized transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. Willliams was arrested on April 7, 2026.
The arrest date is telling. It occurred just two days after an intense high-profile race had ended, between Iranian search teams and Delta Force teams, to locate a second F-15E crewmember whose plane had been shot down in central Iran. Fortunately, the rescue was accomplished by Delta Force, but only after the crewmember had spent 36 hours on the ground evading his would-be captors. And, ironically, this occurred as he was following his evasion TTPs, not knowing the prior publication of Harp’s book had probably given the Iranians an edge on capturing him. Delta Force operators ended up extracting him from the country on April 5.
Iranian special forces experts seeking details about Delta Force operations would have wanted a copy of the Harp/Williams’ book. If obtained, it would have played an undeniably helpful role for the Iranians racing to find the F-15E crewmember.
Titled “The Fort Bragg Cartel” (which is where, in North Carolina, Delta Force is stationed), much of the book’s focus was on Williams’s personal experiences—describing them as a “living hell” and tossing in details of sexual harassment. While even publishing this information violated her oath, Harp suggests Williams was a justified whistleblower reporting on a toxic military environment.
This is outlandish as whistleblowing provides absolutely no excuse for Williams releasing TTP details. It serves no purpose other than to create a needless risk for these elite warriors. Basically what Williams did was to tell our enemies how best to capture any of our special force personnel who might be caught behind enemy lines.
We are left to wonder what evil lurked within the heart of Williams, motivating her to assist an enemy, especially a terrorist one like Iran, in capturing her own countrymen. By her outrageous actions, she contributed to the increased fear factor the F-15E weapons crewman experienced during his 36 hour run for life. He had no idea a TTP blueprint for that run had been made available for enemy review.
What could have motivated Williams to reveal TTPs critical to the survival of American special forces operating behind enemy lines? Was it fame? Was it greed? Was it a defiant act of retribution? Was it hatred for Trump?
Whatever it was, it involved callous thinking on her part. And there is no doubt she was fully aware of what she was doing. The complaint filed against Williams reveals concern she had expressed in messages to Harp such as, “It feels like an entire TTP was sent out in my name.” She was also forewarnedseveral times about revealing information. In a later communication with her mother, Williams said she was “probably going to jail for life” for what she had done. The risk of a ten-year prison sentence now hangs over her head.
The motivations of other Americans who had knowingly transferred classified material directly to an enemy are well known.
Retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker sold secrets to the Soviets (1967–1985) strictly for money. What he provided them reflected a heartless soul. Had war erupted, his actions would have enabled the Soviets to destroy our submarine fleet, killing the vast majority of Walker’s fellow sailors serving under the seas.
Another heartless American was Aldrich Ames—a CIA case officer who spoke Russian and specialized in Russian intelligence services. His became perhaps the most damaging spy story in U.S. history. A man who held greed in higher regard than loyalty, he helped Moscow identify most of the spies the U.S. had operating there. It led to the termination of over 100 CIA operations and the executions of twelve U.S. spies. Ames was convicted of spying in 1994.
Nor can the list of spies ignore the contributions made to the Soviet Union by Robert Hanssen. He worked for the FBI, providing his Soviet handlers with devastating information. While Hannsen benefitted financially from this relationship, other traits such as profound personal narcissism and the “high” of risk-taking—combined with a sense he was underappreciated at the agency—were all contributors in his selling America out, making him feel superior and powerful by doing so.
Deservedly, all three of the above received life sentences, serving 29, 32 and 22 years respectively before dying in prison.
But it is difficult to understand why Williams decided, six years after serving SOCOM, to violate her life’s oath to her country. Perhaps at trial we will learn the source of the evil lurking in her heart. But whatever it was, she selfishly and needlessly chose to impose an even greater risk upon our Delta Force warriors, limiting the operational area within which they function while in peril behind enemy lines.
