{"id":279673,"date":"2026-05-21T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T16:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/279673\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T16:50:09","slug":"florida-trump-prosecutor-accused-in-cake-recipe-named-doc-smuggling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/279673\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Trump prosecutor accused in cake-recipe-named doc smuggling"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Department of Justice prosecutor from Florida<\/a> is charged with allegedly transmitting sealed government records<\/a>,\u00a0including documents tied to former special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s investigation<\/a> into President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, of Port St. Lucie, Florida, faces multiple criminal charges and up to 20 years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n

Lineberger previously worked on\u00a0Smith\u2019<\/a>s probe into Trump<\/a>. According to a release from the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Northern District of Florida, Lineberger allegedly emailed secret documents labeled \u201cINTERNAL DOJ USE ONLY\u201d to her personal email in late 2025.<\/p>\n

She changed the file titles to: “Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf” and \u201cBundt_Cake_recipe.pdf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lineberger appeared in federal court on May 20 for her arraignment before Southern District of Florida Chief United States Magistrate Judge William Matthewman in West Palm Beach. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.<\/p>\n

FBI Director\u00a0Kash Patel<\/a>\u00a0announced the charges on social media, writing, \u201cThis FBI will not hesitate to bring to account those who violated the trust of the American public in an investigation that should\u2019ve never been brought to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where is Port St. Lucie, Florida?<\/p>\n

At the time of the offenses, Lineberger served as the Managing Assistant United States Attorney (MAUSA) of the Fort Pierce branch of the United States Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Florida.<\/p>\n

What documents are involved in Carmen Mercedes Lineberger case?<\/p>\n

According to USA TODAY, the documents were copies of Volume II of\u00a0Jack Smith\u2019s findings from the classified documents investigation\u00a0into Trump. While Volume I of the\u00a0findings was released publicly<\/a>, the summary of Volume II has not been made public, with Politico<\/a> reporting that it discusses classified documents housed at Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permanently barred its release earlier in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs to the DOJ report, the indictment further alleges the defendant 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,\u201d the release states.<\/p>\n

Why did Lineberger allegedly send herself classified files?<\/p>\n

As of May 21, the DOJ has not released any motive or details behind why Lineberger sent herself these emails.<\/p>\n

What is Carmen Mercedes Lineberger charged with?<\/p>\n

Lineberger faces one felony count of obstruction of justice, one felony count of concealing government records, and two misdemeanor counts of stealing government property valued at less than $1,000. If convicted, Lineberger faces up to twenty years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Contributing: Nick Penzenstadler<\/a>, USA TODAY<\/p>\n

Samantha Neely is a trending reporter for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida, covering pop culture, theme parks, breaking news and more. You can get all of Florida\u2019s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at\u00a0https:\/\/floridatoday.com\/newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida prosecutor charged after emailing Trump reports to herself<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Department of Justice prosecutor from Florida is charged with allegedly transmitting sealed government records,\u00a0including documents tied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[119348,1080,32322,28,30,29,119350,171,6688,119351,119349],"class_list":["post-279673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-carmen-mercedes-lineberger","tag-criminal-charges","tag-department-of-justice","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-lineberger","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-secret-documents","tag-southern-district-of-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}