Authorities say Carmen Lineberger emailed a copy of the document to her personal email disguised as a recipe for Bundt cake.
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A former federal prosecutor in Florida was charged Wednesday with stealing a copy of special counsel Jack Smith’s sealed report on his investigation into President Donald Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents after his first term in office.
Prosecutors alleged Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, emailed a copy of the report to her personal email address in January 2025, renaming the file as “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf” in an apparent attempt to evade detection.
At the time, the summary of Smith’s findings was the subject of heated litigation before U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who had ordered it temporarily sealed to protect the rights of those who were named in it, including Trump, but who had not been convicted of a crime.
The judge has since made permanent her order sealing the document.
The indictment against Lineberger, who served as the managing assistant U.S. attorney in Fort Pierce, Florida, does not say what, if anything, she planned to do with the document.
She faces four felony counts, including theft of government property, and entered a not-guilty plea during a court hearing in Florida on Wednesday.
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Her attorney did not immediately return requests for comment.
Smith prepared the report, which summarized the findings of his investigation, in the final days of the Biden administration.
But unlike a similar summary Smith wrote detailing his investigation into Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, it was never publicly released.
Trump was charged with 40 counts of retaining classified information, obstruction of justice and false statements in connection with the classified-documents probe.
But Cannon dismissed the indictment in a highly unusual ruling, citing issues with Smith’s appointment as special counsel.
She later ordered Smith’s report on the investigation sealed after a push from Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department, led at the time by several of the attorneys who had represented the president during the criminal case.
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This is a developing story and will be updated.
