Former DOJ lawyer charged with theft of unreleased report on Trump documents case

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A former U.S. Department of Justice attorney has been charged with emailing herself copies of an unreleased volume of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report concerning the now-dismissed criminal case accusing President Trump of retaining classified documents after his first term.

Carmen Lineberger, who had worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, pleaded not guilty to charges related to the theft and concealment of government records during a Wednesday hearing in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Her lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump was accused in the case pursued by Smith of illegally storing documents related to U.S. national defense, including the American nuclear program, at his Mar-a-Lago social club and obstructing U.S. government efforts to retrieve the material.

Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the indictment in 2024, finding that Smith had not been lawfully appointed by the Justice Department during Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.

Special counsels, who are appointed to lead certain politically sensitive investigations, are required to draft reports to the U.S. attorney general detailing their conclusions on whether to seek charges.

But Cannon last year barred disclosure of the portion of Smith’s final report that related to the classified documents case.

According to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday, Lineberger had received a copy of that volume last year before Cannon ruled while serving as the managing assistant U.S. attorney for her office’s branch in Fort Pierce, Florida.

The indictment said Lineberger on two occasions in late 2025 emailed her personal account a file that contained the volume, concealing her actions by saving the records under the file names “Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf” and “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf.”

The indictment contains no allegations concerning what, if anything, Lineberger did with the documents after emailing them to herself.

(Reporting for Reuters by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot.)