The Justice Department hit a former federal prosecutor with a pair of felony charges Wednesday, accusing her of stealing confidential agency records related to President Donald Trump’s 2023 classified documents case.
Carmen Lineberger, a former managing assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of emailing herself confidential DOJ records last year related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The probe ultimately resulted in 40 felony counts being filed against Trump, though the case was later dismissed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled Smith had been illegally appointed.
Cannon barred the report segment that Lineberger is accused of accessing from being publicly released at Trump’s lawyers’ request after Smith abandoned the case, though Smith released a separate volume of the report in January 2025.
According to the grand jury indictment, Lineberger sent the confidential documents from her DOJ email account to her personal inboxes last fall, using altered file names like “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf” and “Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf.”
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Lineberger pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the two felony counts of obstruction of justice and concealing government records, and two other misdemeanors, and was released soon after.
“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,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X.
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