DOJ opens criminal probe involving E. Jean Carroll testimony in Trump sexual abuse lawsuit

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation involving E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuits over her sexual abuse allegations against President Donald Trump, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The probe is focused on a trust founded by billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, whose nonprofit helped pay some of Carroll’s legal costs, two sources said. Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, is an outspoken critic of Trump.

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said he didn’t even know Carroll. The president is seeking Supreme Court intervention in both cases. The White House referred questions about the probe to the DOJ.

CNN first reported on the investigation into Carroll.

The investigation, which is in its early stages, is being run out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, according to another source familiar with the matter. That office is run by Andrew S. Boutros, a Trump appointee who has recently been in the headlines over the implosion of his office’s prosecution of those involved in protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was one of Trump’s personal attorneys in his appeal of the Carroll verdict, has recused himself from involvement in the case, one of the sources said.

The investigation is looking at comments Carroll made about how her civil suit against Trump was funded.

Asked in an October 2022 deposition whether she was paying legal fees in the case, Carroll said she was not and that “this is a contingency case,” meaning her attorneys would only get paid if the lawsuit was successful. Asked if anyone else was paying the fees, Carroll said, “No,” according to court filings.

In April 2023, Carroll’s attorneys informed Trump’s lawyers that her memory had been “refreshed,” that she was told at some point in 2020 that her lawyer had “secured additional funding from a nonprofit organization to offset certain expenses and legal fees.”

That nonprofit, Lever for Change, was funded by Hoffman. Trump’s lawyers argued that the funding showed Carroll’s case was politically motivated — and that her contradictory testimony showed she’s not credible.

The judge allowed Trump’s lawyers to question Carroll about the discrepancy ahead of the trial, but ultimately barred them from asking her about it on the witness stand.

Trump’s lawyers later used that ruling to argue the verdict should be thrown out, but a federal appeals court disagreed, and noted there was no indication that Carroll knew where the money was coming from.

“Ms. Carroll plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained in September 2020 when this question was first posed to her in 2022, and the additional discovery did not indicate otherwise,” the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a 2024 ruling.

“Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs.”

Hoffman made headlines last year when his name appeared repeatedly in files the Justice Department released related to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Emails released in the files showed the two had a friendly relationship. Hoffman has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein and has said he regrets associating with him.

In a lengthy post on social media last year, Trump called for the Justice Department to investigate Hoffman and other prominent Democrats who’d been mentioned in the files to “determine what was going on with them, and him,” referring to Epstein.

“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Trump wrote in the post.

Trump has also called Carroll’s allegations “a hoax.”

Carroll has alleged that Trump raped her and then “lied and shattered my reputation.” She was awarded $5 million in damages in 2023 after a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her, but not for alleged rape.

In 2024, a jury found that Trump had to pay Carroll about $83 million in damages for repeated defamation. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court decided that Trump did not need to pay the money until the Supreme Court decides whether it would hear the case.

Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations. Last year, he asked the Supreme Court to review the case after a federal appeals court upheld the judgment in 2024.

The DOJ probe is the latest move by the Trump administration to target the president’s perceived political foes, including multiple attempts by the department to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.