WASHINGTON — A former Florida federal prosecutor was indicted for secretly sending copies of ex-special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents report to her personal email account — by pretending it was a “cake recipe.”
Carmen Lineberger, 62, was charged in the Northern District of Florida with two counts for theft of government or property at a value of less than $1,000; destruction, alteration or falsification of records in a federal probe; and concealment, removal or mutilation of public records.
Prosecutors alleged that she concealed the transfer of electronic copies of the report by giving them misleading file names like “chocolate cake recipe” and “bundt cake recipe.”
The files, which were then sent to her personal email accounts, included internal Department of Justice messages and a memo.
Lineberger pleaded not guilty Wednesday during a hearing in West Palm Beach, the Associated Press reported.
She faces up to 25 years in prison upon conviction.
As a former Managing Assistant US Attorney of the Fort Pierce branch of the South Florida US Attorney’s Office, Lineberger had worked in the same jurisdiction where Smith brought the classified documents indictment against President Trump in June 2023.
Smith’s report stemmed from the investigation into President Trump’s hoarding of classified files at Mar-a-Lago, but a federal judge had ordered it to remain sealed last February.
Fort Pierce US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, accused Smith and his team of having engaged in a “brazen stratagem” by compiling the report, since she had dismissed the case in 2024.
Smith had been unconstitutionally appointed — without congressional authorization — as special counsel, Cannon ruled in July of that year.
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He had later appealed the case’s dismissal to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, only to drop it after Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump had been accused of hoarding sensitive national security documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., estate — and then engaging in a conspiracy to conceal the files from the feds.
