A federal prosecutor in the office that handled Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents regarding his investigation into Donald Trump was charged Wednesday for allegedly illegally emailing herself a copy of the materials disguised as cake recipes.

The department announced the prosecutor as Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, managing assistant U.S. attorney of the Fort Pierce branch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. 

Lineberger has been charged with two counts of theft of government money or property; the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations; and with the concealment, removal or mutilation of public records.

The charges against Lineberger were filed in the Northern District of Florida. She pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.

The department, in announcing the charges, said that in separate instances in late 2025, Lineberger altered the electronic file names of government records that she received in her official capacity "to conceal" her unauthorized electronic transmission of the records to personal email accounts belonging to her "without being detected.” 

The altered government records included a document that included parts of internal DOJ electronic messages, an internal DOJ memorandum and a DOJ report related to a criminal prosecution that had been court-ordered to remain under seal and prohibited from distribution or disclosure outside of the department, the DOJ also said.

Lineberger allegedly attempted to conceal her actions by saving electronic copies of the government records in question under misleading file names such as “chocolate cake recipe” and “Bundt cake recipe” before emailing the documents to her personal email accounts.

The DOJ also said Wednesday that Lineberger also 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."

Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw this element of Smith’s special counsel investigation, ruled in February 2026 that then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and all DOJ officials and employees were all barred from releasing, transmitting, or sharing the second volume of Smith’s report on Trump.

Lineberger’s current online biography says that she is a “Retired Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney” from the Southern District of Florida.

She is also on the advisory board of the National Black Prosecutors Foundation and is the continuing legal education chair for the National Black Prosecutors Association. Lineberger praised President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and critiqued Trump DOJ policies in the past while she was an active DOJ attorney.

The DOJ’s website currently lists Lineberger as among its “DOJ Ambassadors to Law Schools” and says she is a DOJ ambassador to Florida A&M University College of Law in Orlando, Nova Southeastern University–Shepard Broad Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia, and Villanova University School of Law in Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida tweeted in 2021 that “today, Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Fort Pierce Branch, Carmen M. Lineberger shares her favorite quote by Shirley Chisholm - the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. #WomensHistoryMonth.” The tweet featured a Lineberger photo and Chisholm quote which said that “if they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

The National Black Prosecutors Association (NBPA) said in August 2025 that it was “sending a special thanks to National CLE Coordinator Carmen Lineberger.”

Lineberger was a key part of a 2020 training session on “Confronting Racial Bias & Implementing Strategies to Ensure Justice in the Prosecution of Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, Stalking, and Human Trafficking” where she authored advice on how to “employ strategies for eradicating racial bias and enhancing justice for Black women and people of color in the criminal justice system.”

The NBPA presented a 2021 session on “Rebutting the Rhetoric: A Virtual Implicit Bias Training” featuring Lineberger as a breakout session facilitator.

“Implicit bias is a phenomenon that is under increasing study. It is unconscious bias formed by associations in the brain that link two ideas together, and is shaped by experiences, cultural affirmations, society, media, and other influences,” the training session said. “This CLE program will examine concepts such as implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat, and discuss how these biases reveal themselves in the criminal justice system, using scientific data and real world case studies. Participants will learn about, and reflect on, the criminal justice system’s history and evolution, and will be introduced to new strategies for identifying and eliminating bias from criminal justice outcomes. Participants will leave with action items they can adopt to be ‘bias disrupters,’ to bring about a more equitable system, and to maintain the integrity of the legal system at every stage of the process.”

The DOJ prosecutor also went on a “trailblazer series” episode of the Strategic Wins podcast in 2023 where she and host Lafonda Willis discussed Lineberger’s prosecutorial career, her nearly twenty years at the NBPA, and her pro-DEI advocacy.

“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,” Lineberger said of the Biden era policies.

“Thank you Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Willis remarked.

“Yes, yes. We need to thank them,” Lineberger replied. “Because NBPA was able to have implicit bias training for those who could not sponsor them in their own offices under the prior administration. But 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 DOJ said Wednesday that, if convicted, Lineberger faces up to twenty years of imprisonment for “destruction, alteration, or falsification of records” in federal investigations, up to three years behind bars for “concealment, removal, or mutilation” of public records, and up to one year in prison “on each count of theft of government property.”

Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland quickly said he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant” for the FBI’s unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago back in August 2022.

Smith and the Biden DOJ charged Trump in June 2023 over allegations related to the improper retention of classified documents, followed by a superseding indictment the next month. The charging documents alleged that “the unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States.”

Judge Cannon dismissed Smith’s classified documents case against Trump in July 2024, ruling that Smith had been “unlawfully appointed” as special counsel. Smith attempted to appeal the ruling but soon dropped it after Trump won the 2024 election against then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Smith sent a letter to Garland in early January 2025 as part of the submission of his final report.

“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). 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,” Smith told Garland at the time.

The Trump DOJ and the defense lawyers for Trump’s former co-defendants both wrote in a March 2025 court filing that “the United States does not object to the Court keeping its order enjoining the Attorney General of the United States and the Department of Justice from releasing Volume II outside the Department of Justice, or sharing any information contained in Volume II with anyone outside the Department of Justice, in place.”

The court filing added that “under no circumstances should the Court order the release of Volume II of Jack Smith’s confidential Final Report.”

Trump lawyer Kendra Wharton told Cannon in January 2026 that “President Donald J. Trump respectfully moves, in his individual capacity and as a former defendant in this since-dismissed criminal action, for an order prohibiting the release of Volume II of the Final Report prepared by so-called “Special Counsel” Jack Smith and his office.”

The Trump lawyer 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” and that such a release “would also lead to the public dissemination of sensitive grand jury materials, attorney-client privileged information, and other information derived from protected discovery materials, raising significant statutory, due process, and privacy concerns for President Trump and his former co-defendants.”

U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quinones and Assistant U.S. Attorney Manolo Reboso told the court the same month that “the United States agrees with the former defendants in this case that Volume II should not be released outside of the Department of Justice” and that “Smith’s tenure was marked by illegality and impropriety, and under no circumstance should his work product be given the full weight and authority of this Department.”

Cannon ruled in February of this year that “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, are enjoined from (a) releasing, sharing, or transmitting Volume II of the Final Report or any drafts of Volume II outside the Department of Justice, or (b) otherwise releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in Volume II or in drafts thereof.”

Lineberger has now been charged for allegedly attempting to surreptitiously do just that.