Florida Federal Prosecutor Indicted Over Sealed Jack Smith Report Allegedly Hidden as "Cake Recipes"
Carmen Mercedes Lineberger pleaded not guilty after the DOJ said she renamed sealed records as "chocolate cake recipe" and "bundt cake recipe" before emailing them to herself.
A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Florida has indicted a former Justice Department prosecutor from the same office that handled special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents prosecution of President Trump, alleging she stole government records, falsified them, and concealed her actions by disguising sealed material as dessert recipes before transmitting it outside the department.
The Justice Department identified the defendant Wednesday as Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, of Port St. Lucie, Florida, who at the time of the alleged offenses served as the Managing Assistant United States Attorney of the Fort Pierce branch of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. According to the indictment, she now faces two counts of theft of government money or property valued at less than $1,000, one count of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations, and one count of concealment, removal, or mutilation of public records. She pleaded not guilty Wednesday before Chief United States Magistrate Judge William Matthewman in West Palm Beach.
The Justice Department’s Northern District of Florida office, which announced the charges under U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin, said in its press release that “in separate instances in late-2025, the defendant altered the electronic file names of government records that she received in her official capacity as the MAUSA in order to conceal her unauthorized electronic transmission of those records to personal email accounts belonging to her without being detected.” The release further stated that the altered files included “a document compiled by the defendant consisting of portions of internal DOJ electronic messages and an internal DOJ memorandum, and a DOJ report related to a criminal prosecution in the SDFL that had been court-ordered to remain under seal and prohibited from distribution or disclosure outside of DOJ.”
According to the indictment, Lineberger “concealed her actions by saving electronic copies of the government records in question under the misleading files names ‘chocolate cake recipe’ and ‘bundt cake recipe’ before electronically transmitting those records to her personal email accounts.” Prosecutors further allege that, as to the DOJ report specifically, “the defendant acted knowing that her transmission of the record outside DOJ directly violated the court order and impaired the proper administration of the underlying criminal prosecution.” The matter is being jointly investigated by the FBI and the DOJ Office of the Inspector General and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christie S. Utt of the Northern District of Florida, who the department said was “assigned as a special prosecutor to avoid conflicts of interest.” If convicted on all counts, Lineberger faces up to twenty years in prison on the falsification count, three years on the concealment count, and up to one year on each theft count.
The court-sealed report referenced in the indictment is widely understood to be Volume II of Smith’s final report covering the classified documents case. Smith wrote to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2025 that “we have provided a redacted version of Volume Two that identifies certain information that remains under seal or is restricted from public disclosure by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e),” adding that “because Volume Two discusses the conduct of Mr. Trump’s alleged co-conspirators in the Classified Documents Case, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, consistent with Department policy, Volume Two should not be publicly released while their case remains pending.” In February 2026, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who had presided over the underlying prosecution, formally enjoined “Attorney General Bondi or her successor(s), the Department of Justice, its officers, agents, officials, and employees, and all persons acting in active concert or participation with such individuals” from “releasing, sharing, or transmitting Volume II of the Final Report or any drafts of Volume II outside the Department of Justice.”
FBI Director Kash Patel responded to the indictment in a post on X Wednesday afternoon, writing, “This afternoon, a former managing assistant U.S. Attorney who supported Jack Smith’s politicized investigation of President Trump has been charged with stealing the confidential investigation documents. This FBI will not hesitate to bring to account those who violated the trust of the American public in an investigation that should’ve never been brought to begin with.”
The underlying prosecution Patel referenced began with the FBI’s August 2022 raid of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, which Garland publicly confirmed he “personally approved.” Smith and the Biden Justice Department charged President Trump in June 2023 over the alleged improper retention of classified documents, with a superseding indictment following the next month. Judge Cannon dismissed the case in July 2024, ruling that Smith had been “unlawfully appointed” as special counsel. Smith filed an appeal but withdrew it after President Trump won the 2024 election. The Trump Justice Department later joined defense lawyers in opposing any release of Volume II, telling the court in March 2025 that “under no circumstances should the Court order the release of Volume II of Jack Smith’s confidential Final Report,” and a January 2026 filing from President Trump’s attorney Kendra Wharton argued that “the potential, improper release of Volume II would constitute an irreversible violation of this Court’s constitutional rulings in the underlying criminal action and of bedrock principles of the separation of powers.”
According to her public biography on the National Black Prosecutors Foundation website, Lineberger now identifies as a “Retired Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney” from the Southern District of Florida and serves on the foundation’s advisory board, while also holding the continuing legal education chair position for the National Black Prosecutors Association. The Department of Justice’s website still lists her as a “DOJ Ambassador to Law Schools” assigned to several institutions including Florida A&M, Nova Southeastern, Drexel, Temple, and Villanova. In a 2023 episode of the Strategic Wins podcast, Lineberger praised the Biden-Harris administration’s restoration of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees within U.S. Attorney’s Offices, stating, “Now that we’re allowed to have them, we have Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committees in many of the U.S. Attorney’s Offices under the current administration, where the prior administration disbanded it,” and added, “we are back now, better than ever, and we’re ensuring that we are taking part in interviews, that we are on our minority hiring committees and hiring committees.”
The Justice Department noted in its release that “an indictment is merely an allegation by a grand jury that a defendant has committed a violation of federal criminal law and is not evidence of guilt,” and that Lineberger, like all defendants, “is presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial, during which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Sources: Just The News, Department of Justice.
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