A federal prosecutor whose office helped Jack Smith pursue charges against President Donald Trump over allegedly mishandling classified documents has now been indicted for allegedly stealing confidential government records herself — disguising them as dessert recipes to hide the evidence.
Carmen Mercedes Lineberger was indicted on May 19 on multiple charges, including two counts of theft of government money or property after she allegedly secretly transmitted confidential DOJ records to her personal email accounts while disguising the files with names, a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ) claims.
According to the indictment, Lineberger obtained a copy of Smith’s Volume II Report, which alleged the president and two co-defendants mishandled classified documents. The report was the subject of a legal battle after the case was dismissed, and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued an order prohibiting the DOJ and any of its employees from “sharing” or “releasing” the report since Cannon ruled it was “not customary” for a prosecutor to release findings publicly in a dismissed case.
Prosecutors allege that nearly 11 months later, Lineberger allegedly downloaded a copy of the report on her government-laptop, changed the file name to “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf” and then emailed that file to her personal email account. The indictment further alleges that Lineberger did so in defiance of Cannon’s order that prohibited the release of such document.
In a separate instance, Lineberger allegedly renamed a file containing an internal DOJ memorandum that was specifically labeled “FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY – INTERNAL DOJ USE ONLY” as “Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf” and sent it to her personal email, according to the indictment.
Lineberger entered a not guilty plea on Wednesday, according to CNN.
Lineberger worked in the Southern District of Florida US Attorney’s Office in Fort Pierce where Smith was prosecuting Trump. As CNN reported, Lineberger “was not on the special counsel team” but that “the US Attorney’s Office played a supporting role to some parts of Smith’s work, including before the special counsel was appointed and Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago resort was searched in 2022.”
