The Justice Department hit a former federal prosecutor with a pair of felony charges Wednesday, accusing her of stealing confidential agency records related to President Donald Trump’s 2023 classified documents case.
Carmen Lineberger, a former managing assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of emailing herself confidential DOJ records last year related to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The probe ultimately resulted in 40 felony counts being filed against Trump, though the case was later dismissed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled Smith had been illegally appointed.
Cannon barred the report segment that Lineberger is accused of accessing from being publicly released at Trump’s lawyers’ request after Smith abandoned the case, though Smith released a separate volume of the report in January 2025.