The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation focused on the nonprofit funding behind E. Jean Carroll's sexual abuse lawsuits against President Donald Trump, examining potential money laundering, obstruction, and conspiracy charges, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The probe centers on a trust founded by billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder whose nonprofit helped finance Carroll's legal costs. While investigators are also reviewing a potential perjury charge related to Carroll's trial testimony, that allegation is not the primary focus of the inquiry.
The investigation is being run out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, a Trump appointee-led office. However, the office issued a striking denial on Thursday. U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros stated: "In light of wide-spread reporting and intense media and public interest into the E. Jean Carroll matter in New York, the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office can confirm that it has not opened and has never opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll. Any claim to the contrary is categorically false."
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who served as one of Trump's personal attorneys during Trump's appeal of the Carroll verdict, has recused himself from the case, sources said.
The Testimony Question
The investigation is examining Carroll's deposition statements about how her civil suit was funded. In an October 2022 deposition, Carroll said she was not paying her legal fees, calling it a "contingency case" where attorneys would only receive payment if successful. When asked if anyone else was covering the costs, she answered "No."
Eight months later, in April 2023, Carroll's attorneys told Trump's lawyers that her "memory had been refreshed." She was informed that her lawyer had "secured additional funding from a nonprofit organization to offset certain expenses and legal fees" in 2020.
Trump's legal team argued the funding revealed the lawsuit was politically motivated and that Carroll's contradictory statements damaged her credibility. The trial judge allowed questioning about the discrepancy before the trial but ultimately blocked Trump's lawyers from raising it during testimony. Trump later used that ruling to argue the verdict should be overturned.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument in 2024, writing that "Ms. Carroll plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained in September 2020 when this question was first posed to her in 2022." The court noted that discovery showed "Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs."
Carroll, a former magazine writer, won a $5 million damages award in 2023 after a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing her. She secured an additional $83 million civil judgment for defamation in 2024. Trump has denied all allegations and filed for Supreme Court review of both cases.
Hoffman's connection to the investigation also drew attention after his name appeared repeatedly in files the Justice Department released last year related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Emails showed the two had a friendly relationship. Hoffman has said he regrets the association and has not been accused of wrongdoing related to Epstein. Trump called for a DOJ investigation into Hoffman and other Democrats mentioned in the Epstein files, calling it "another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats."
Author Sarah Mitchell: "The denial from the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office directly contradicts reporting from multiple sources, raising hard questions about who is actually running this investigation and what happened between the initial opening and this sudden public disavowal."
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