The Justice Department has opened an investigation into writer E. Jean Carroll , who accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her 30 years ago, people familiar with the probe said.
DOJ is examining whether Carroll, 82, committed perjury in civil litigation against Trump, the people said.
In her first lawsuit, Carroll accused Trump of defamation when he insulted her and denied raping her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s. In a separate lawsuit, Carroll accused Trump of sexually abusing her and later defaming her in a social-media post.
FILE PHOTO: Writer E. Jean Carroll leaves the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where former U.S. President Donald Trump is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a $5 million jury verdict finding him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her, who accused Trump of raping her nearly three decades ago, in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 6, 2024. REUTERS/Adam Gray/File Photo
Trump has denied the allegations and said he never met Carroll.
Federal juries in both cases found in favor of Carroll, awarding her $83 million in the defamation case and $5 million in the sexual abuse one. Trump has asked the Supreme Court to hear the sexual abuse case and has said he would do the same with the defamation matter.
Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office i n Chicago are studying a 2022 deposition in which Carroll said no one was paying her legal fees for her defamation lawsuit, the people familiar with the matter said. Court papers later showed Reid Hoffman , the co-founder of LinkedIn and a Trump critic, helped pay for some expenses related to the lawsuit. Hoffman, who has a nonprofit based in Chicago, has publicly defended his support for Carroll.
Carroll’s lawyers in 2023 told Trump’s lawyers that Carroll “now recalls that at some point her counsel secured additional funding from a nonprofit organization to offset certain expenses and legal fees.” After Trump’s lawyers raised the issue in court, the judge allowed the lawyers to exchange limited evidence related to the matter. The judge said that while the matter of financial support wasn’t relevant to the merits of the case, what she said in the deposition could speak to her credibility.
An attorney for Carroll declined to comment on the new federal investigation, which was reported earlier by CNN. Trump’s Justice Department has made it a priority of investigating and prosecuting people the president considers enemies.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche , who has overseen several of those inquiries into the president’s opponents, has stepped aside from the Carroll probe because he represented Trump in some of the litigation during his time as his personal defense attorney, one of the people said.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and Corinne Ramey at corinne.ramey@wsj.com
