The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, examining whether the writer lied under oath about who funded her lawsuits against Donald Trump.
Sources familiar with the matter say prosecutors are looking at Carroll’s 2022 deposition testimony.
In that sworn statement, the 82-year-old former magazine columnist told Trump’s lawyers that no one else was paying her legal bills.
Weeks before trial, her team disclosed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had covered some costs through a nonprofit.
Carroll’s lawyers said she never met or spoke with anyone associated with the nonprofit. Trump’s legal team called the timing suspicious and accused her side of hiding the support for months.
The judge in the case allowed another deposition but later ruled the funding issue did not affect Carroll’s credibility and kept it out of the jury’s view.
Justice Department Officials Handle Probe
Senior Justice Department officials referred the case to federal prosecutors in Chicago. That city is home to Hoffman’s nonprofit, even though Carroll gave her deposition in New York. No charges have been filed.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has stepped aside from the matter. He previously worked as one of Trump’s personal lawyers on the Carroll appeals and remains recused.
Other officials in the deputy attorney general’s office are handling it.
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The probe comes amid Trump’s persistent fight against two major civil judgments against him.
In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s.
They awarded her $5 million before a second jury later hit him with another $83.3 million for defaming her when he denied the claims and attacked her character.
Civil Cases Against Trump Remain Under Appeal
Trump has called both cases a hoax and appealed. The Supreme Court has put off deciding whether to take up the first appeal multiple times.
Appeals in the second case are also moving forward, with Trump posting bonds to delay payment while the cases play out.
The funding revelation first surfaced in April 2023, just before the second trial. Trump attorney Alina Habba told the court that Carroll’s side had “conspired to conceal the truth.”
Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and a major Democratic donor, has been a vocal Trump critic for years. He once said he would spend whatever it took to stop another Trump presidency.
CNN reports that Carroll’s team declined to comment on the new investigation.
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This is not the first time the funding issue has caused friction. Trump’s lawyers pushed for more time and a deeper look when the disclosure came late.
Judge Lewis Kaplan allowed limited follow-up questions but moved the trial forward on schedule. He said there was “virtually nothing there” on the credibility question.
The case has stayed in the headlines long after the verdicts. Trump has tried, without success so far, to get the Justice Department to step in as a defendant in the civil suits under the Westfall Act, arguing that his statements were made while he was president.
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, first went public with her accusation in a 2019 book excerpt. She said Trump attacked her in the upscale Manhattan store decades earlier.
Trump denied it happened and said she was not his type, which led to the defamation claims.
Jurors heard from Carroll and two other women who described similar encounters with Trump. The Access Hollywood tape also played a role.
Trump’s team called the cases politically motivated and said the stories lacked evidence, like police reports or contemporary records.
