The US Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuits over allegations of sexual abuse by President Donald Trump. The criminal inquiry is focused on a trust founded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, whose nonprofit assisted in paying some of Carroll’s legal fees, according to CNN. The allegations under investigation are possible money laundering, obstruction and conspiracy, along with questions over whether Carroll committed perjury in her testimony. The former magazine writer accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s. In 2023, Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages by a jury that found Trump liable for sexually abusing her. The following year, Carroll won a further $83 million civil judgement in a defamation case involving the president. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations, claiming that he did not even know Carroll. He is now seeking Supreme Court intervention in both cases. The latest investigation will look into comments Carroll made about how her case against Trump was funded. When asked in 2022 if she was covering her own legal fees Carroll responded "no," but she later admitted that she knew a nonprofit was offsetting "certain expenses and legal fees." Trump’s lawyers argued that Hoffman’s funding showed Carroll’s case was politically motivated, and pushed for the verdict to be thrown out.
