[ { "type": "paragraph", "content": "The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that it has opened a criminal investigation into former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who in 2019 accused former President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York department‑store dressing‑room in the mid‑1990s. Carroll has won two civil lawsuits against the ex‑president—one for assault and another for defamation—receiving $5 million and $83 million in damages, respectively." }, { "type": "paragraph", "content": "The new probe, led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, is specifically looking at whether Carroll committed perjury when she testified in a 2022 deposition that no outside funding had helped finance her civil cases. The claim is nuanced by evidence that LinkedIn co‑founder Reid Hoffman’s non‑profit organization funded a portion of Carroll’s legal expenses." }, { "type": "paragraph", "content": "Carroll had maintained in her deposition that she had no external funding and that she had ‘forgotten’ the limited money provided by Hoffman. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2024 ruling, found that she plausibly ‘represented’ that funding was absent, but the DOJ is arguing the defendant was aware and deliberately lied under oath. The DOJ will have to prove that Carroll willingly and knowingly lied, explained Dmitry Shakhnevich, a prosecutor at John Jay College. That is a high threshold for a standalone perjury case arising from a civil proceeding." }, { "type": "paragraph", "content": "Trump, who denied all allegations and has continually called on the DOJ to prosecute opponents, has invoked the Supreme Court twice to overturn the first of Carroll’s judgments. He has also spent significant resources on the litigation, while the DOJ itself recently set up a $1.8 billion fund to pay former officials who claim they were unfairly investigated during past administrations." }, { "type": "paragraph", "content": "No comment has been forthcoming from the DOJ about the investigation. Carroll’s lawyer has declined to provide remarks, and both court filings and public sources indicate that the case could potentially lead to indictment, but prosecutors warn that the rarity of this kind of federal prosecution means the outcome is far from certain." }, { "type": "paragraph", "content": "The investigation is being conducted while the legal and political ramifications of the civil verdicts have intensified. The Supreme Court hearing on Trump’s appeal to overturn the $5 million judgment is imminent, and the DOJ’s probe adds another layer of scrutiny to a complex legal battle that continues to dominate the national conversation." } ]