Lineberger’s alleged conduct, prosecutors said, violated court restrictions tied to the special counsel report stemming from the classified-documents probe of Trump. The charges, made public Wednesday in federal court filings, concern what prosecutors described as sharing sealed material from special counsel Jack Smith’s team with her own personal email account even though a judicial order barred Justice Department employees from distributing the report.
According to the indictment described by the Associated Press, Lineberger pleaded not guilty during a court appearance in West Palm Beach. She is described as having worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and managed its Fort Pierce branch. The report said her attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Prosecutors allege that during her time as a Justice Department prosecutor last December, Lineberger sent a copy of the special counsel report “to her personal email account,” despite the judge’s order that it remain sealed. The indictment said the order barred Justice Department employees from sharing, transmitting or distributing copies of the report. The alleged email involved a subject line and a file name prosecutors say she altered.
The indictment alleges that Lineberger sought to conceal her actions by changing the file name of the report to “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf” before saving the re-titled file on her government computer and emailing it to her personal account. Prosecutors also alleged that several months earlier, Lineberger created another document on her government computer consisting of portions of internal Justice Department messages and portions of an internal memorandum marked for official use. Prosecutors said she sent that material to her personal email address as an attached file titled “Chocolate_cake_recipe.pdf.”
The indictment, as described in the AP account, does not explain why Lineberger would have wanted to send the special counsel report to her own personal email account. Prosecutors did not detail a motive in the description provided, focusing instead on the steps prosecutors said she took to access the material and transmit it.
The special counsel report at the center of the case has not been seen by the public. The AP reported that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had ruled in favor of Trump’s lawyers, who argued that releasing the report would be unfairly prejudicial after Smith abandoned the case following Trump’s 2024 election victory.
The indictment and the broader case context also reflect where the matter was handled. Lineberger, prosecutors said, worked in the same judicial district where Smith’s case accusing Trump was filed, a case that alleged Trump illegally retained dozens of classified records at the Mar-a-Lago property and obstructed efforts to recover them.
After the indictment was made public, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement posted on X: “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,” according to the AP report.