The Justice Department is reportedly investigating whether E. Jean Carroll committed perjury in civil cases she won against Donald Trump.
The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether writer E. Jean Carroll committed perjury in connection with her civil lawsuits against President Donald Trump, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News and Reuters. CNN first reported the investigation.
The inquiry focuses on Carroll’s 2022 deposition statement that she had not received outside funding for her case, according to the reports. Legal filings later disclosed that Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, helped pay some of Carroll’s legal costs.
The Justice Department declined to comment to the BBC. CBS News said it had sought comment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois and Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, while CBC reported the department and Kaplan did not immediately respond to requests. No charges have been announced, and the opening of an investigation does not mean prosecutors will bring a case.
The investigation is being led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, sources told CBS News and the BBC. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who represented Trump in some Carroll-related litigation, is recused from the matter, a source told CBS News.
Carroll, a former Elle advice columnist, accused Trump in 2019 of attacking her in the dressing-room area of Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in the mid-1990s. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation.
Carroll won two civil cases against Trump. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation tied to comments he made in 2022 and awarded Carroll $5 million. In 2024, another jury found him liable for defamation over 2019 comments and awarded her $83.3 million. CBS News and the BBC reported that both judgments were upheld on appeal; the BBC reported Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the first judgment and has vowed to challenge the other.
The litigation-funding issue was already raised in the civil appeals. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote in a 2024 ruling, quoted by CBS News and the BBC, that Carroll had “plausibly represented” that she had forgotten about limited outside funding obtained by counsel and that the record showed she was not involved in deciding who paid litigation costs.
The reported investigation comes amid broader criticism from Democrats that the Justice Department under Trump has targeted his perceived adversaries since his return to office. CBC cited recent or reported investigations involving several Trump critics and former officials, and said Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff criticized the Carroll probe in a social media post.
The immediate next steps remain unclear, including whether prosecutors will seek testimony, documents or charges. For now, the matter remains at the investigative stage, with the department publicly declining to explain its rationale.
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