The Justice Department is examining whether longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll committed perjury in testimony related to her two civil lawsuits against President Trump
CNN reported that investigators are examining Carroll’s claim during a 2022 deposition that neither of her lawsuits were funded by outside sources, though Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and a Democratic megadonor, was later revealed to have paid some legal fees and expenses via his Chicago-based nonprofit, American Future Republic.
Carroll, now 82, was initially awarded $5 million in May 2023 after a Manhattan federal jury found the president liable for sexual abuse and defamation. The columnist had claimed Trump raped in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room during the spring of 1996 and then defamed her by denying her claim, saying she wasn’t his type and had made the whole thing up to boost book sales.
In response to Trump’s continued sniping, Carroll filed a second defamation lawsuit, which ended in a jury ordering Trump in January 2024 to shell out $83.3 million in damages, including $65 million in punitive damages, $11 million to help Carroll rebuild her reputation and another $7.3 million to compensate her for her pain and suffering.
The president has continued to deny even meeting Carroll and has appealed the initial $5 million sex abuse judgement to the Supreme Court, while pledging to do the same with the $83.3 million award.
