Exclusive: Justice Department opens criminal investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll

Summary The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation against E. Jean Carroll for potential perjury during her testimony in her trials against President Donald Trump. Prosecutors are examining whether Carroll lied during a 2022 deposition when she said no one else was paying her legal fees, close sources told CNN. Carroll’s attorneys declined to comment for this story.

The AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The investigation is focusing on whether Carroll committed perjury during his testimony related to his two civil lawsuits against the president – one alleging he sexually abused Carroll at a New York department store in the mid-1990s, and the second for defaming her when in 2019 he repeatedly denied the assault, said she was not his type and claimed she made it up to increase the sales of a book.

Prosecutors’ theory hinges on a 2022 deposition statement from Carroll, 82, that she received no outside funding for her trial, although it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman paid some legal fees and expenses.

Carroll’s team declined to comment for this story. Attempts to reach Hoffman on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The investigation is the latest move in the department’s ongoing and somewhat strained efforts to respond to Trump’s demands to target his longtime personal enemies.

Under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the department has pushed to accelerate Trump’s retaliatory campaign. But the cases he has brought since he took the department’s reins in April have been heavily criticized and are expected to face legal challenges over allegations of politicization.

But Blanche was recused from that case because he worked as one of Trump’s personal lawyers on the Carroll calls, according to a source familiar with the matter. Blanche has not attended meetings or participated in discussions about the investigations, and the investigation is being overseen by other officials in the assistant attorney general’s office.

Senior Justice Department officials have referred the investigation to federal prosecutors in Chicago, according to two sources familiar with the matter. While Carroll’s deposition took place in New York, one of the people who helped cover part of Carroll’s legal fees, Hoffman, owns a Chicago-based nonprofit.

Hoffman’s support for the case caught Trump’s lawyers by surprise when it was revealed on the eve of the trial.

In a deposition recorded in 2022, Carroll told Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, that no one else was paying his legal fees. But two weeks before the trial, Carroll’s lawyers informed the judge and Trump’s lawyers that they had secured funding from Hoffman’s nonprofit.

Carroll’s lawyers said she never met or had conversations with anyone associated with the nonprofit. Habba said in court at the time that Carroll’s team “conspired to hide the truth for nearly six months.”

The judge allowed Trump’s lawyers to re-question Carroll in a deposition, which has not been made public.

When the trial began two weeks later, Judge Lewis Kaplan said he saw no problem with Carroll’s credibility and blocked lawyers from asking questions about Hoffman’s financing.

Caroll remains embroiled in multiple legal battles with the president. Juries awarded Carroll millions of dollars in damages, which the president is appealing. Trump appealed the ruling in the $5 million sex abuse case to the Supreme Court and vowed to do the same with the $83 million defamation case.

The Supreme Court has postponed its decision on whether to accept Trump’s appeal twelve times. The most recent postponement occurred Wednesday morning.

In another case, the president unsuccessfully asked the Justice Department to join the case as a defendant so he could assert immunity from liability. A panel of appeals court judges said that argument was raised too late in the legal process.

CNN’s John Fritze contributed to this report. This story has been updated to remove a statement provided in error by the Justice Department.

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