The Justice Department, or DOJ, inadvertently released former special counsel Jack Smith's sealed Volume II report to lawyers defending Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, a former Fort Pierce federal prosecutor charged with stealing the document.
Volume II contains Smith's evidence regarding President Donald Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents, a report Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon ordered be kept confidential.
Lineberger is accused of emailing herself a copy disguised as a cake recipe.
The DOJ mistakenly included the report on flash drives sent on June 3, but her lawyers discovered it six days later.
"Upon review, the Government confirmed the documents in question were copies of the Volume II Report that were embedded within electronic messages required to be produced in discovery," the filing read.
Defense counsel immediately ceased review, confirmed they hadn't examined the documents, and cooperated in recovering the drives.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal defense attorney in the classified documents case, now oversees the DOJ's decisions regarding the report, raising conflict-of-interest concerns among Senate Democrats.
Lineberger has pleaded not guilty.
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