Former prosecutor emailed herself the unreleased Jack Smith report, DOJ alleges
NBC News • • nation
Key Points:
- Former federal prosecutor Carmen Mercedes Lineberger was indicted on charges of stealing, concealing, and altering government property after allegedly emailing confidential files from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.
- Lineberger, who was a managing assistant U.S. attorney in Florida, is accused of renaming files with innocuous titles like “chocolate cake recipe” to avoid detection and sending them to her personal email accounts between September and December.
- The indictment does not indicate that Lineberger shared the files with others, but if convicted on all four counts, she faces over 20 years in prison.
- The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida, and the confidential files include parts of a report that a federal judge barred from public release due to questions about the special counsel’s appointment.