The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine writer who turned accusing Donald Trump into a full-blown cottage industry — and federal prosecutors want to know if she lied under oath to do it. The probe is examining potential money laundering, obstruction, conspiracy, and perjury connected to her civil lawsuits against President Trump, as first reported by NBC News.
The woman who spent years playing the brave victim suddenly finds herself on the other end of a federal investigation? Karma doesn't knock. It kicks the door in.
Here's what makes this especially juicy. During an October 2022 deposition, Carroll reportedly stated that no one else was paying her legal fees. Small problem: billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman — yes, the LinkedIn co-founder — had set up a nonprofit trust back in September 2020 specifically to fund her legal costs. Carroll's own attorneys didn't inform Trump's legal team about that little detail until April 2023, claiming she had simply "forgotten" about the arrangement.
Forgotten. She forgot that a Silicon Valley billionaire was bankrolling her lawsuit against a sitting president. Sure. I forget where I put my keys sometimes, but I've never misplaced a billionaire benefactor.
The investigation is being handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, led by Trump appointee Andrew S. Boutros. Now, Boutros put out a curious statement saying his office "has not opened — and has never opened — a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll" specifically. But NBC News and multiple outlets confirmed the DOJ probe is real — it's just centered on the nonprofit trust and funding apparatus, with Carroll's testimony as a key thread. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has recused himself from the case entirely because he previously served as Trump's personal attorney on the Carroll appeal.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously gave Carroll a pass on the funding question, writing that "Ms. Carroll plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding." Plausibly. That's the legal system's way of saying, "We don't totally buy it, but we'll let it slide." Federal prosecutors apparently aren't feeling as generous.
Let's remember what's actually at stake here. A jury awarded Carroll $5 million in 2023 after finding Trump liable for sexual abuse — not rape, as the media gleefully misreported for months — based on allegations from the mid-1990s. Then a second jury slapped on an $83 million defamation judgment in 2024. Trump has appealed, and payment is paused pending Supreme Court review.
That's $88 million in judgments built on testimony that the DOJ now thinks might contain lies. Let that sink in.
And then there's Reid Hoffman, who apparently thought he could quietly fund a legal crusade against a political opponent from behind a nonprofit shield and nobody would ever look twice. Hoffman responded to the investigation with predictable melodrama, declaring, "Trump cannot be allowed to use the full weight and power of the US Government to come after women who speak up." He added, "Trump hopes that these fraudulent investigations will silence those who stand up to him. He is wrong. I will not bend the knee."
Bend the knee. The billionaire who secretly bankrolled a lawsuit while the plaintiff told a court nobody was paying her bills is now casting himself as the resistance hero. You can't make this stuff up.
The investigation is reportedly in its early stages, but the charges under examination — money laundering, obstruction, conspiracy, and perjury — aren't parking tickets. These are the kinds of charges that end careers and start prison sentences.
For years, we watched the legal system get weaponized against President Trump through this case. A decades-old allegation with no witnesses, no police report, and no contemporaneous evidence produced nearly $90 million in judgments. And now it turns out the accuser may have been lying under oath about who was pulling the strings and writing the checks.
The accuser just became the accused. And unlike a civil case where you lose money, a criminal perjury conviction means you lose your freedom. Welcome to the other side of the courtroom, E. Jean.