The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into whether E. Jean Carroll committed perjury regarding outside funding for her lawsuits against President Donald J. Trump.
The probe focuses on Carroll’s 2022 deposition testimony, where she stated she had not received external financial support for her legal battles. The DOJ is examining the accuracy of this claim after it was revealed in 2023 court filings that LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman—a major Democratic donor—contributed to Carroll’s legal expenses. Carroll claims she was unaware of the external funding from an “Epstein Island visitor” and that her legal team handled those matters independently.
Hoffman has funded numerous anti-Trump efforts, including Nikki Haley’s primary campaign against him and lawsuits targeting news organizations over alleged voting irregularities in 2020.
The investigation could have significant implications for Carroll, who won civil judgments totaling over $80 million against Trump after juries found him liable for sexual assault and defamation but not rape. Trump has consistently denied the allegations of an attack on her in a New York City department store during the mid-1990s and has appealed both cases to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Carroll’s accusations span years, including claims of assaults by individuals such as a childhood playmate, a babysitter’s boyfriend, a dentist, a camp counselor, an unnamed college date, an unnamed former boss, and former CBS chief executive Les Moonves. She alleges that Trump forced himself on her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store during a time when changing rooms—typically locked and attended by staff—were inexplicably open and deserted. No surveillance footage exists to corroborate this claim, which she first made in 2019 and later revised from late 1995 or early 1996 to spring 1996.
