The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into E Jean Carroll, the magazine writer who won two major legal victories against Donald Trump. The move marks an alarming escalation in the president's use of federal law enforcement to target those who have opposed or embarrassed him.
Carroll sued Trump after he denied allegations that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. A federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse in 2023. A second jury later determined he defamed Carroll when he publicly rejected her account as false. The judgments awarded her $5 million for the first case and more than $83 million for the second. Trump has vowed to appeal both verdicts without success so far, having seen appeals rejected or delayed repeatedly.
Despite the court victories, Carroll has received none of the money owed to her. Trump has instead continued a relentless public campaign against her, attacking her character and appearance in crude terms. Court filings document that he "never wavered or relented in his public attacks" against the woman he had allegedly assaulted.
The criminal investigation centers on a 2022 deposition in which Carroll, now 82, stated she had not received support for her lawsuit. Prosecutors contend this statement was false, noting that billionaire Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn founder, has funded her legal representation. Such discrepancies in civil litigation are routine and virtually never prosecuted as criminal matters. Yet the Department of Justice is using this minor claim as justification for opening a full criminal inquiry into the woman Trump has spent years attacking.
The investigation represents the convergence of two troubling patterns. First is Trump's systematic weaponization of federal agencies against his perceived enemies. Since returning to power, his administration has opened investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James after she pursued fraud charges against the Trump Organization. Federal prosecutors briefly investigated Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over policy disagreements with Trump. Former national security adviser John Bolton faced indictment for alleged classified document violations. Even former FBI Director James Comey was subjected to a criminal inquiry over a social media post.
The second pattern involves the use of legal proceedings by powerful men to retaliate against women who report sexual misconduct. Since the #MeToo movement, defamation lawsuits and other costly legal actions have become tools of intimidation and silencing. The Johnny Depp trial against Amber Heard exemplified how such cases can drain resources, humiliate accusers, and preserve abusive men's power over their alleged victims.
The merger of these two trends in Carroll's case is particularly stark. The federal government is now employing its enforcement power to harass a woman whose only offense was reporting sexual violence and winning in court. The investigation lacks any serious factual basis, relying instead on a thin pretext about testimony in a civil case. Yet it subjects an elderly woman to the full machinery of federal criminal prosecution at taxpayer expense.
What ties these episodes together is an attempt to control reality itself. Trump has long insisted on his power to define what is true and what is false, famously attacking unflattering coverage as "fake news." He claimed this power when he first defamed Carroll, and he claims it now through federal investigators. The message is unmistakable: those who contradict Trump, who report on him accurately, or who hold him accountable face the full weight of state power in retaliation.
This represents a fundamental corruption of law enforcement and the courts. When federal prosecutors become instruments of a powerful individual's personal vendettas, when the criminal justice system targets women for reporting sexual assault, the entire apparatus of justice is perverted. The rule of law withers when investigations are opened not on evidentiary grounds but as punishment for embarrassing a sitting president.
Author James Rodriguez: "This isn't prosecutorial independence; it's prosecutorial revenge dressed up in official process."
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