The Justice Department accidentally released former special counsel Jack Smith's sealed report on President Donald Trump to lawyers for the former prosecutor accused of stealing it.
Volume II includes Jack Smith's evidence in his case to prove Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving office — the report Trump has fought to keep secret. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge who dismissed the underlying case, has barred the Justice Department from releasing it outside the department.
Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, a former Fort Pierce federal prosecutor, is charged with emailing herself a copy of Volume II disguised as a cake recipe. On Thursday, the Justice Department did damage control after mistakenly sending a copy to her defense lawyers.
The Justice Department transmission to Lineberger's lawyers included flash drives sent on June 3, per a joint notice filed with Cannon. Six days later, her lawyers found Volume II embedded in the files.
"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 said.
"Defense counsel voluntarily ceased review of the discovery material, affirmed they had not examined the documents in question, deleted all discovery materials already downloaded to their server, and cooperated with the Government's efforts to recover the flash drives that same day," the notice added.
"The Government acknowledges the professionalism and candor of defense counsel in remedying this inadvertent inclusion."
Cannon sealed the report in February, writing that Trump "still enjoy[s] the presumption of innocence" because his charges were dismissed without a guilty verdict. She cited Jack Smith's "brazen stratagem" in compiling the report after she had already thrown out the case.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — Trump's former personal defense attorney in the very classified documents case Volume II describes — now runs the DOJ that filed Thursday's notice. Senate Democrats have warned that having Trump's former lawyers on both sides of Volume II decisions raises serious conflict-of-interest concerns.
Lineberger has pleaded not guilty.
