The DOJ, under Donald Trump’s control, has asked the judge who dismissed the president’s Mar-a-Lago classified documents case to “consider further action” after prosecutors charged a former government attorney with stealing ex-special counsel Jack Smith’s never-released report on the investigation.
The Monday notice to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon noted at the outset that U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida John Heekin — not the recused U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida — submitted the filing.
The reason: Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, previously served as a managing assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District and allegedly “altered the electronic file names of government records” on separate occasions in late 2025 to forward them to her personal email accounts — in direct defiance of the Trump-appointed judge’s order blocking the release of Volume II.
When the DOJ announced the indictment in May, it alleged that Lineberger renamed the files “chocolate cake recipe” and “bundt cake recipe” in a failed bid to “conceal the true identity of an electronic copy of the Volume II Report.”
The government has since told Cannon that the alleged crimes also constitute a violation of her court order — an injunction that has been in place since early 2025 and the start of Trump’s second term.
“This Notice is provided to disclose this alleged violation of the Order by a now-former Department of Justice employee to enable this Honorable Court to consider further action and sanction as deemed appropriate,” the filing stated.
It remains unclear what action Cannon might take, though there is reason to believe she could act.
In February, when the judge permanently blocked then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and her successors from releasing Volume II, she wrote that her July 2024 dismissal of the Espionage Act prosecution — on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed — rendered all of the special counsel’s acts invalid.
Smith was careful in his public testimony to avoid addressing any findings about Trump’s allegedly willful retention of classified documents or obstruction of their return, not wanting to run afoul of Cannon’s order. Even so, she characterized the mere creation of Volume II as “a concerning breach of the spirit of the Dismissal Order” at minimum, “if not an outright violation of it” through a “brazen stratagem.”
Cannon stopped short of ordering Volume II destroyed, however, and appeals seeking to make it public continue at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Arguments are tentatively scheduled for the week of Sept. 28.
Lineberger has pleaded not guilty to charges of theft, record alteration, and concealment.
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