Florida prosecutor charged with emailing herself the most sought-after documents from Jack Smith’s Trump investigation

By Casey Gannon, Paula Reid, Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) — A former managing assistant US attorney in the Southern District of Florida has been charged with emailing herself the most sought-after, confidential Justice Department records in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump, masquerading them as dessert recipes.

Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, was charged with two counts of theft of government money or property, valued less than $1,000. She entered a plea of not guilty on Wednesday.

Prosecutors allege Lineberger received an email on her Justice Department account in January 2025 with copies of a report entitled “Volume II Report” that was related to a pending investigation. The Volume II report was the final finding of Smith’s investigation of Trump and his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Lineberger was in a supervisory role in the Southern District of Florida US Attorney’s Office, based in Fort Pierce, during the time of the investigation and prosecution of Trump.

While she was not on the special counsel team, 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 personal area of his Mar-a-Lago resort were searched in 2022.

The Justice Department alleges that in September 2025, Lineberger compiled portions of an internal DOJ memorandum and transmitted messages she received on her government email account to her personal Hotmail email account, with the subject line “chocolate cake recipe.”

Lineberger is also accused of accessing the email she received earlier in the year with the Volume II Report in December 2025, and sharing it to her personal Gmail account with the file renamed “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf”

District Judge Aileen Cannon barred the release of Volume II in February 2026. She wrote in a 15-page ruling that is was “not customary” for a prosecutor to release findings publicly for a case that was dismissed. Cannon had tossed the case against Trump before he was re-elected to a second term, citing that the appointment of Smith as a special counsel was unconstitutional.

The indictment mentions that Cannon issued an order on January 2025 regarding the report that prohibited any Justice Department official from “releasing, sharing or transmitting” the report outside of the department.

Top Trump Justice Department officials, who were Trump’s personal attorneys on the classified documents case, and lawyers for his two codefendants have argued that Smith’s filings should never be released and were invalid.

If convicted, Lineberger could face up to 20 years in prison.

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