The Department of Justice has reportedly opened a criminal investigation into writer E. Jean Carroll focused on whether she committed perjury in her civil litigation against President Donald Trump.
The Civil Cases
As reported on Friday’s AM Update, Carroll filed two civil lawsuits against the president. In 2019, she alleged in a New York Magazine excerpt from her memoir that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room some time around 1995 or 1996.
President Trump publicly denied the allegations, which prompted Carroll to sue him for defamation. That case was put on hold because of issues related to the fact that he was the sitting president. But Carroll filed a second suit alleging both defamation and sexual assault after New York State temporarily opened a legal window to bring older sexual assault claims.
That second case went to trial first. In May 2023, a jury found President Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not rape. He was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million.
Carroll’s original defamation case, meanwhile, went to trial separately with jurors only deciding damages after the earlier verdict had already established liability. In January 2024, that jury awarded her $83.3 million.
President Trump continues to deny Carroll’s allegations and is appealing both verdicts.
The Investigation
Now, Carroll’s own testimony is reportedly under scrutiny. According to CNN, federal prosecutors are focused on a 2022 deposition in which she said no one else was paying her legal fees. Her lawyers later disclosed, however, that some of her legal expenses had been covered through a nonprofit backed by Democratic megadonor and major Trump critic Reid Hoffman.
President Trump’s attorneys argued at the time that the funding disclosure raised serious questions about Carroll’s credibility, but her team maintained the funding had no bearing on her claims because she had not met or spoken with anyone connected to the nonprofit.
Neither Carroll nor Hoffman have commented on the latest reporting, and the DOJ declined to comment on the investigation to multiple outlets.
In the wake of the report, CNN legal analyst Eli Honig explained what the Justice Department will need to prove to a grand jury in order to secure an indictment:
“What prosecutors want to show here to have an indictment against E. Jean Carroll is that (A) she gave false testimony about whether she knew where this funding was coming; (B) that the way she was asked the question was unambiguous, that there’s no wiggle room, there’s no confusion about what the question was or what the answer was; (C) that she knew it was false at that time, in 2022 at the deposition; and then (D) the prosecutors will have to show what we call materiality, meaning was the thing she allegedly lied about relevant to some substantial issue in the case. It’s not enough if it was just some detail or some throw away.”
“So, those are the things prosecutors have to show. And, of course… beyond a reasonable doubt, when it gets to a jury, if and when it gets the jury,” Honig added. “So, perjury cases are serious, they’re punishable by a maximum five years in prison, but they’re much harder for prosecutors to prove than, I think, people might realize.”
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