Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel announced that a former Department of Justice (DOJ) U.S. attorney was charged with stealing “confidential investigation documents” relating to former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump.
In a post on X, Patel revealed that Carmen Lineberger, 62, had “allegedly emailed the confidential material” to her personal email, and in an effort to cover them up “from record searches,” they were labeled as “dessert recipes.”
“”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,” Patel said. “Carmen Lineberger allegedly emailed the confidential material to her own personal email, disguising them as dessert recipes to conceal them from record searches. Lineberger is charged with four felony counts in the indictment.”
According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida, Lineberger, who previously served as the Managing Assistant United States Attorney (MAUSA) with the Fort Pierce branch of the United States’s Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, was “indicted in federal court for two counts of theft of government money or property, valued less than $1,000.00; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; and concealment, removal, or mutilation of public records.”
Per the press release, the indictment claims that while serving in her role, “in separate instances in late-2025,” Lineberger allegedly “altered the electronic file names of government records that she received in her official capacity”:
The indictment alleges at the time of the offenses the defendant served as the Managing Assistant United States Attorney (MAUSA) of the Fort Pierce branch of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. 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 altered government records 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.
As alleged in the indictment, the defendant 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 person email accounts. As to the DOJ report, the indictment further alleges the defendant act knowing that her transmission of the record outside DOJ directly violated the court order and impaired the proper administration of the underlying criminal prosecution.
“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,” Patel added in his post.
CNN also reported that Lineberger is facing “two felony charges related to her handling of Volume II of Smith’s final report, which detailed Smith’s findings that Trump and two co-defendants who worked for him in 2021 mishandled national security documents.”
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