A former federal prosecutor in Florida has been indicted on charges that she secretly emailed herself sealed Justice Department records tied to former special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents investigation into President Donald Trump, allegedly disguising the files as dessert recipes to avoid detection.
Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, of Port St. Lucie, was charged in a newly unsealed federal indictment with theft of government property, destruction or falsification of records in a federal investigation, and concealment or removal of public records. She pleaded not guilty during an arraignment on Wednesday in federal court in West Palm Beach.
According to prosecutors, Lineberger was serving as the managing assistant U.S. attorney in the Fort Pierce branch of the Southern District of Florida when she accessed sensitive DOJ materials and transmitted them to personal email accounts without authorization.
The indictment alleges she renamed confidential files with misleading titles, including “chocolate cake recipe” and “bundt cake recipe,” before emailing them to herself.
Among the records allegedly transmitted was “Volume II Report,” the sealed final report prepared by Smith regarding Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Prosecutors said Lineberger received the report through her DOJ email account in January 2025 and later forwarded it to her personal Gmail account that December under the file name “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf.”
The indictment further alleges that in September 2025, Lineberger compiled portions of an internal DOJ memorandum and sent messages from her government account to a personal Hotmail account with the subject line “chocolate cake recipe.”
Lineberger was not a member of Smith’s special counsel team, but the U.S. attorney’s office in South Florida assisted with portions of the investigation before and after Smith’s appointment, including matters tied to the FBI’s 2022 raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The case centers on materials that prosecutors say were subject to strict court-imposed secrecy protections. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of Trump, issued an order in January 2025 prohibiting DOJ personnel from “releasing, sharing or transmitting” the report outside the department while litigation surrounding the documents remained ongoing.
In February 2026, Cannon separately blocked the public release of Volume II, writing that it was “not customary” for prosecutors to publicly release findings connected to a case that had already been dismissed. Cannon previously threw out the classified documents case against Trump, ruling that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional.
The indictment alleges Lineberger knew that transmitting the material outside the DOJ violated court orders and could interfere with the administration of the underlying prosecution.
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The DOJ’s Office of Inspector General and the FBI are investigating the case.
If convicted, Lineberger faces up to 20 years in prison on the falsification charge, up to three years for concealing or removing public records, and up to one year on each theft count.