DOJ opens criminal investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who won civil judgments against President Trump after accusing him of sexual assault and defamation, according to CNN.
The investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony connected to her two lawsuits against Trump, CNN reported, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors are examining a 2022 deposition in which Carroll said she had received no outside funding for her lawsuit, even though billionaire Reid Hoffman was later revealed to have paid some of her legal fees and expenses.
Carroll, 82, sued Trump after accusing him of sexually assaulting her in a dressing room at a New York department store in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the allegation and repeatedly said Carroll had made it up, including after she went public with the accusation in 2019.
Her first lawsuit accused Trump of defaming her over those denials. A second lawsuit accused him of sexual abuse and defamation. Juries in New York later found Trump liable in the civil cases, awarding Carroll millions of dollars in damages.
The new criminal inquiry centers on Carroll’s testimony, not the underlying assault allegation or the civil verdicts, according to CNN. The reported theory is that Carroll’s statement about outside funding may have been false because Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor, later acknowledged helping cover legal costs.
There was no immediate indication from CNN’s reporting that Carroll has been charged with a crime. It was also unclear what steps prosecutors have taken as part of the investigation.
Trump has long denied Carroll’s accusations and has continued to attack the civil judgments against him. Carroll has maintained that Trump assaulted her and later defamed her when he accused her of lying.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
