Justice Department investigating E. Jean Carroll for alleged perjury
by Lisa Hornung · UPIMay 28 (UPI) -- The Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who sued President Donald Trump for sexual assault and defamation, multiple outlets reported Thursday.
The investigation is about whether Carroll committed perjury in her two civil suits against Trump, according to CNN, ABC News and CBS News.
Carroll won two civil suits against Trump. One alleged that he sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the 1990s and another one was for defamation in 2019, when he denied the assault and said she made up the assault to boost book sales. In the assault case, Carroll was awarded $5 million, and in the defamation case, she was awarded $83 million.
The investigation is into a 2022 deposition in which Carroll said she received no outside funding for the suit. Later, it came to light that billionaire Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, paid some of her legal fees and expenses.
During the trial, Judge Lewis Kaplan said he saw no issue with Carroll's credibility and blocked Trump's lawyers from asking about funding from Hoffman.
Carroll's lawyers said she never had any contact with Hoffman's nonprofit.
An appeals court later found that Carroll had "plausibly represented" in the deposition "that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained."
"Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District wrote in its 2024 ruling, CBS reported.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is recused from the investigation because he was one of Trump's attorneys during the appeal, CNN reported. The investigation was sent to federal prosecutors in Chicago. Hoffman has a nonprofit based in Chicago.
Trump has appealed the $5 million sexual abuse judgment to the Supreme Court. He has said he will do the same with the $83 million defamation case.
The Supreme Court has deferred Trump's appeal 12 times. The most recent deferral was on Wednesday morning, CNN reported.
In May 2023, Hoffman told The Washington Post why he helped fund Carroll's legal action: "We didn't encourage the lawsuit to happen, we only got on board after she'd already filed."
"My team looked at it, thought that her voice should be heard because she was challenging someone who was so much more wealthy and powerful, it shouldn't be squashed," Hoffman said.
This week in Washington
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump participate in a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on Wednesday. Photo by Samuel Corum/UPI | License Photo