In a case that really takes the cake (see what I did there?), there was an inadvertent inclusion in discovery of the report allegedly stolen by Defendant.

According to Law & Crime (‘Inadvertent inclusion’: Trump admin accidentally releases Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago report during discovery to defense counsel for woman accused of stealing it, written by Colin Kalmbacher and available here), the DOJ inadvertently released copies of the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his criminal investigations into President Donald Trump*.

In a joint notice of inadvertent discovery disclosure filed Thursday, federal prosecutors and defense attorneys alerted U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the mistake “implicates the Order” she issued in January 2025 initially blocking the DOJ from releasing the report. In February, Cannon affirmed her original order barring release — stopping short of having the report destroyed.

So, what’s the deal?

This case involves “a separate criminal prosecution” in which a now-former federal prosecutor allegedly emailed herself copies of the second volume.

In the case, Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, 62, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida, allegedly “altered the electronic file names of government records” during “separate instances in late 2025” to email the files to her personal accounts.

Specifically, the DOJ alleges she used file names like “chocolate cake recipe” and “bundt cake recipe” in an attempt to conceal “the true identity of an electronic copy of the Volume II Report.”

Now, you see what I did there! 😉

In June, the DOJ alerted Cannon that Lineberger had likely violated her order. Then a few days ago, the government let the judge know its own attorneys likely violated the order as well – by releasing the files to Lineberger’s defense team in the normal course of discovery. The oversight was brought to the prosecution’s attention by the defense.

The government provided the discovery in question to the defense on June 3 via several flash drives, according to the filing. To their credit, defense counsel notified the Government on June 9 that, upon reviewing the electronic discovery that same day, defense counsel identified three documents embedded within the materials and contacted the Government to determine if those documents were intended to be produced in discovery.

When the Government confirmed that they were copies of the Volume II Report that were embedded within electronic messages required to be produced in discovery, “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”.

Prosecutors lauded Lineberger’s defense team.

“The Government acknowledges the professionalism and candor of defense counsel in remedying this inadvertent inclusion in discovery materials furnished by the Government,” their notice stated.

So, in a case that “really takes the cake”, the parties handled an inadvertent inclusion in discovery materials the way parties should handle these things. Yes, really! 😉

So, what do you think? Are you surprised about the way the way the inadvertent inclusion was handled? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using DALL-E 3, using the term “robot lawyer looking at a bundt cake sitting on a file”.

*Not a political post, just an eDiscovery of interest post.

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