The Justice Department inadvertently included the sealed second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith's report on Donald Trump's handling of classified documents in a discovery production to defense lawyers in an unrelated federal criminal case, according to a court filing published July 2, 2026 [1]. The materials were delivered on a flash drive as part of standard discovery in the case against Carmen Lineberger [1].
Lineberger faces federal charges for allegedly stealing the Smith report by emailing it to herself from a government system, disguising the file as a cake recipe [1]. Her defense lawyers discovered the sealed volume among the production materials on June 9 and reported the disclosure to the government, triggering the government's acknowledgment in the subsequent court filing [1]. Volume 2 of Smith's report has remained under seal and concerns Trump's retention and handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, a matter distinct from the January 6 investigation covered in the report's first volume.
The disclosure raises direct questions about DOJ's document-handling protocols in active prosecutions. The department was, in effect, prosecuting Lineberger for unlawfully obtaining a document while simultaneously producing that same sealed document to her lawyers through its own discovery process. The irony is procedurally significant: defense counsel now possesses, through the government's own error, material their client allegedly risked federal prosecution to acquire [1]. Courts have established procedures for clawback of inadvertently disclosed privileged or sensitive materials under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(B), and analogous criminal discovery frameworks give the government a basis to demand the return or sequestration of the misdisclosed files.
As of the filing date, the government had not publicly detailed corrective steps or moved to strike the disclosure from the record [1]. The incident lands at a politically sensitive moment, as Volume 2 remains contested terrain, with multiple parties having litigated over its release. The accidental production gives Lineberger's defense a procedural foothold, including potential arguments about the government's own handling of the very materials at the center of the charges. Whether prosecutors move swiftly to contain the disclosure, and how the presiding court responds, will shape the near-term posture of the case.