A former federal prosecutor has been indicted on charges of theft of government property and concealment of government records after allegedly transmitting a sealed special counsel report to her personal email account.
Carmen Lineberger, who previously served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and managed its Fort Pierce branch, appeared in court in West Palm Beach where she entered a plea of not guilty to the charges.
According to the indictment made public on Wednesday, Lineberger accessed and transmitted a confidential report prepared by special counsel Jack Smith and his team while she was still employed as a Justice Department prosecutor in December. The report detailed the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
The indictment states that at the time of the alleged transmission, a judicial order explicitly prohibited Justice Department employees from sharing, transmitting, or distributing copies of the report. Despite this restriction, prosecutors claim Lineberger took deliberate steps to conceal her actions.
Investigators found that Lineberger allegedly altered the original file name of the special counsel report to “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf” before saving it on her government computer. She then transmitted the renamed file to her personal email account using the same deceptive filename in the subject line.
The indictment reveals this was not an isolated incident. Several months prior to the December transmission, Lineberger allegedly created another document on her government computer. This document contained portions of internal Justice Department messages and sections of an internal memorandum marked with headers and footers indicating it was for official use only. Prosecutors say she transmitted this material to her personal email address using an attachment titled “Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf.”
The indictment does not provide details about Lineberger’s potential motivations for sending the report to her personal email account, noting only that she had legitimate professional access to the documents as a prosecutor.
The special counsel report in question has remained under seal and has never been released to the public. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon previously ruled against its release after Trump’s legal team argued that disclosure would be unfairly prejudicial following Smith’s decision to abandon the case after the 2024 presidential election.
Lineberger worked in the same judicial district where Smith filed the classified documents case against Trump. That case alleged Trump illegally retained dozens of classified records from his first presidential term at the Mar-a-Lago property and obstructed government efforts to retrieve them.
FBI Director Kash Patel commented on the case in a statement posted on social media platform X, emphasizing that the FBI would hold accountable those who violated public trust.
The case represents a significant development involving the handling of sensitive government documents within the Justice Department itself. The charges against Lineberger underscore the serious consequences that federal employees face when allegedly violating protocols regarding classified or sealed materials, regardless of their position within the government.
Lineberger’s attorney has not yet publicly responded to requests for comment regarding the charges.
Leave a Reply