|
Prosecutors would face substantial hurdles in potentially pursuing charges against Ms. Carroll, who twice won cases against Donald Trump, or the billionaire who helped pay her lawyers.
|
|
The Justice Department is said to be examining the funding of lawsuits brought by E. Jean Carroll, an author who has never sought a public role, political power or governmental authority.
|
|
The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the writer E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump twice, for sexual abuse and defamation. According to CNN, The New York Times and other outlets, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in a deposition, even though a federal appeals court upheld the rulings in 2024.
In 2019, Carroll published a memoir describing an encounter in the 1990s when she says Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store. When Trump denied the account, Carroll sued him and won $5 million in damages, with a unanimous New York jury finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. After Trump made disparaging remarks about Carroll, she sued him again and won a second defamation judgment for over $83 million. (She has yet to collect any money pending appeals by Trump.)
"The use of the Justice Department to go after E. Jean Carroll in this way is completely unprecedented," says law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer, who says the probe is part of an obvious "vendetta" by Trump. "It's frankly galling."
See our interview with director Ivy Meeropol about her documentary Ask E. Jean.
|
|
President Trump, who will turn 80 next month, did not give details on the exam.
|
|
