Justice Department charges prosecutor for trying to steal report on case linked to Trump
The Department of Justice intends to send a federal prosecutor to prison accused of trying to steal a report linked to a Donald Trump case
Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, a federal prosecutor with a long career, faces a serious accusation from the Department of Justice for allegedly trying to steal a report linked to a case of President Donald Trump
The documentation indicated was part of the work carried out by former special prosecutor Jack Smith with the aim of demonstrating the alleged retention of classified documents incurred by the New York magnate at the end of his first stage at the head of the White House.
However, from the moment Smith resigned from his position, shortly after Trump's return to the White House, Aileen Cannon, a federal judge, ordered the report on which the 56-year-old lawyer was working to be sealed and also stored to evade curious people eager to know its contents.
According to the prosecution, everything was going according to plan until, in January of last year, Lineberger, an assistant prosecutor in Fort Pierce, Florida, downloaded a copy of the confidential report to her work computer and then sent it to her personal email pretending that it was a cooking recipe.
To achieve this objective, the lawyer used an account assigned to her by the Department of Justice and through it she attached a file called “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf.”
Immediately afterwards, believing that no one would notice the described cyber camouflage, he sent the file to his personal Gmail account.
The point is that, if someone dares to open the report, with the aim of making it public or disclosing any part of its content, they would be committing a crime.
Recently, Carmen Mercedes Lineberger made her first appearance in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, where she pleaded not guilty to two counts of theft of government money or property, valued at less than $1,000; destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations; and concealment, theft or mutilation of public records.
If the 62-year-old woman is convicted, she would face up to 20 years in prison for destruction, alteration or falsification of documents in federal investigations, three years in prison for concealment, theft or mutilation of public documents, and up to one year in prison for each count of theft of government property valued at less than $1,000.