DOJ charges ex-prosecutor with emailing secret Jack Smith report to herself
A former federal prosecutor, Carmen Lineberger, has been indicted for emailing herself a confidential report related to the Justice Department's investigation into President Trump. The report, which was kept under seal by a judge, was allegedly saved under a misleading file name. Lineberger has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include theft of government property and altering a public record.
- ▪Carmen Lineberger was charged with two counts of theft of government property and other related offenses.
- ▪She allegedly downloaded a confidential report and emailed it to herself using deceptive file names.
- ▪The investigation centers around Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
8 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 11 hours. Coverage spans 3 points on the political spectrum — 4 lean left, 2 centre, 1 right.
- ▪ Ex-prosecutor charged with sending to herself report on Trump classified probe — NPR Topics: News
- ▪ Ex-prosecutor charged with sending to herself report on Trump classified probe — NPR — News
- ▪ Former prosecutor emailed herself the unreleased Jack Smith report, DOJ alleges — NBC News — Politics
- ▪ Former prosecutor charged with emailing herself Jack Smith report, disguising it as cake recipe — The Hill
- ▪ Former prosecutor charged for disguising sealed Jack Smith report as cake recipe — Washington Examiner
- ▪ Ex-prosecutor charged with sending herself copy of Smith report on Trump classified files probe — ABC News — US
- ▪ Ex-US prosecutor charged for sending herself Trump probe report disguised as cake recipe — South China Morning Post
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| Original publisher | CBS News — Top |
| Canonical URL | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doj-charges-carmen-lineberger-emailing-jack-smith-report-bundt-cake-recipe/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 20 May 2026 18:09:30 -0400 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-20T22:15:03.058Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-20T22:15:03.058Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 2EfSf871Sviy · 8 stories |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Politics DOJ charges ex-prosecutor with emailing secret Jack Smith report to herself under file name "Bundt Cake Recipe" By Joe Walsh Joe Walsh Senior Editor, Politics Joe Walsh is a senior editor for digital politics at CBS News. Joe previously covered breaking news for Forbes and local news in Boston. Read Full Bio Joe Walsh May 20, 2026 / 6:09 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google A former federal prosecutor was charged this week with emailing herself a report on the Justice Department's investigation into President Trump that a judge had kept under lock and key.Carmen Lineberger was indicted Tuesday on two counts of theft of government property, plus counts of concealing and removing a public record and altering a public record. She was arraigned Wednesday and pleaded not guilty.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at CBS News — Top.
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