This image, included in a court filing by the Department of Justice on August 30, 2022, and partially redacted by sources, shows a photo of documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8, 2022.
Department of Justice | AP
After leaving office in January 2021, the former federal prosecutor was charged with stealing a sealed report prepared by then-special counsel Jack Smith in the defunct criminal case against President Donald Trump over his possession of classified government documents.
Carmen Mercedes Lineberger is accused in a four-count indictment unsealed Wednesday of saving sealed portions of Smith’s report on a government-issued computer under the file name “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf” and emailing the report from her Justice Department email account to her personal Gmail account on Dec. 1, 2025.
At the time of the alleged acts, Mr. Lineberger, 62, was an assistant federal prosecutor in Fort Pierce, Florida, according to the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Lineberger is charged with crimes related to theft of government property and deletion and falsification of public documents.
On January 21, 2025, Judge Eileen Cannon issued an order prohibiting the Department of Justice and its employees from “publishing, sharing, or transmitting” Volume 2 of the Smith Report, which was filed with the court.
Mr. Lineberger appeared in court in Fort Pierce on Wednesday and was released without posting bail.
CNBC has reached out to Lineberger’s criminal defense attorney and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for comment.
In July 2024, Cannon dismissed a Justice Department criminal case against Trump for storing hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, after the end of his first term and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
Judge Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment to prosecute cases involving Trump violated the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Smith subsequently appealed that denial. But the Justice Department halted that effort after Trump was elected to a nonconsecutive second term in the White House in November 2024, citing the department’s policy barring federal prosecutions of sitting presidents.
