A former federal prosecutor was charged this week with emailing herself a report on the Justice Department’s investigation into President Trump that a judge had kept under lock and key.
Carmen Lineberger was indicted Tuesday on two counts of theft of government property, plus counts of concealing and removing a public record and altering a public record. She was arraigned Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.
The charges focus on a report penned by former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, whose team charged Mr. Trump with trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and allegedly mishandling classified documents. The election-related parts of the report were released in mid-January 2025, but a week later, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon blocked former Attorney General Merrick Garland “or his successor(s)” from releasing the portion on classified documents, known as “Volume II.”
A newly unsealed indictment accuses Lineberger — previously the managing assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida — of downloading a copy of Volume II last December and saving it under the file name “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf.” She then allegedly emailed it from her Justice Department account to her personal account.
Lineberger was also accused of downloading portions of an internal Justice Department memorandum and emailing it to herself in September 2025. Those records were allegedly saved under the file name “Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf.”
The indictment does not specify what, if anything, Lineberger allegedly planned to do with the documents.
Lineberger’s attorney declined to comment.
The Volume II report at the center of Tuesday’s indictment was compiled after Smith charged Mr. Trump in 2023 with retaining sensitive government documents from his first term and storing them at Mar-a-Lago. The then-former president and two employees were also charged with conspiracy to obstruct a federal investigation. Mr. Trump has long denied wrongdoing and cast the investigation — which included an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago — as politically motivated.
Cannon dismissed the indictment in 2024 on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed. Then, one day after Mr. Trump was sworn in for his second term, Cannon said the Justice Department cannot release or share Smith’s report on the probe, on the grounds that it could unfairly prejudice the two Trump staffers whose criminal cases remained open.
Cannon did not prevent the Justice Department from releasing Volume I of Smith’s report, which focused on Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office after losing in 2020. The charges against Mr. Trump hit a roadblock in mid-2024 after the Supreme Court ruled the president has immunity for official acts, and the case was dismissed after Mr. Trump won back the presidency. Smith argued in Volume I that Mr. Trump would have been convicted if not for his return to office.
