The Justice Department is now investigating Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll for possible perjury over secret lawsuit funding, raising serious questions about weaponized lawfare and credibility in the cases used to attack a former president.[1][2][3]
Story Snapshot
- The Department of Justice (DOJ) is probing whether E. Jean Carroll lied under oath in a 2022 deposition about outside funding for her lawsuits against Donald Trump.[1][2][3]
- Reports say billionaire Reid Hoffman helped cover some of Carroll’s legal fees, despite her sworn statement that she had no outside funding.[1][3]
- The investigation is reportedly run out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, though DOJ has not confirmed it on the record.[1][3]
- Legal experts across networks admit perjury cases like this are rare and hard to prove, especially if Carroll convinces prosecutors she simply forgot.[1][2][3]
DOJ Targets Carroll’s 2022 Deposition Over Lawsuit Funding
Multiple outlets report that the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into whether E. Jean Carroll lied under oath about who was paying for her legal war against Donald Trump.[1][2][3] According to these reports, the probe centers on Carroll’s October 2022 deposition, where she allegedly testified that she had not received outside funding for her civil lawsuits, which accused Trump of sexual abuse and defamation and ultimately produced nearly ninety million dollars in damages against him.[1][2][3]
CBS News says sources told them the investigation “hinges” on that 2022 deposition answer about funding, and that questions arose after it later emerged that outside money had, in fact, helped cover some of Carroll’s legal costs.[1] ABC News likewise reports the Justice Department is examining possible perjury tied specifically to outside funding of Carroll’s two civil suits, rather than relitigating the underlying assault or defamation allegations themselves.[2] CNN similarly frames the inquiry around potential false testimony regarding third-party financial backing.[2]
Reid Hoffman Funding And How The Issue Came To Light
CBS reports that it “was later revealed” that billionaire Reid Hoffman, a prominent Trump critic and Democratic donor, had paid some of Carroll’s legal fees and expenses.[1] Other coverage notes there was a broader dispute in the civil litigation over whether private donors or nonprofit entities were bankrolling Carroll’s efforts, with Trump’s lawyers arguing that hidden backing could show bias, coordination, or ulterior motives behind the high-profile lawsuits targeting a sitting and then former president.[3][4]
Reporting from MS NOW explains that Carroll’s legal team later told the court that she had a contingency fee agreement with her lawyers and that nonprofit funding was secured only after she filed her first case in 2019, suggesting she was not personally managing the money side.[3][5] That later clarification, plus disclosures to the judge, became part of the reason some legal analysts now argue the statement at issue may not meet the strict materiality requirement for a federal perjury charge, because the judge knew about the funding and still allowed the cases to proceed.[3]
Why Proving Perjury Will Be Difficult For Prosecutors
On CNN, a legal analyst spelled out what prosecutors would have to show to indict Carroll: that she made a false statement about funding, that the question was clear and unambiguous, that she knew her answer was false at the time, and that the statement was material to an important issue in the case.[2] The analyst noted that perjury in a deposition carries up to five years in prison but is rarely prosecuted because all of those elements, especially knowledge and materiality, are tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.[2]
A former federal prosecutor interviewed by MS NOW went even further, calling this “not a legitimate perjury case” based on what is publicly known.[3] She argued the funding answer was not material because the judge was informed of the outside support, allowed Trump’s lawyers another deposition on the subject, and later blocked them from questioning Carroll about it at trial after finding no credibility problem.[3] CBS also reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals accepted Carroll’s explanation that she had simply forgotten about the outside funding and concluded this did not damage her credibility, given she was not handling the financing herself.[1]
Anonymous Sources, Political Overtones, And Rule-of-Law Concerns
All of this is unfolding through anonymous leaks rather than official filings, with CBS, ABC, and others attributing the existence and focus of the investigation to “sources familiar with the matter” while the Department of Justice declines to confirm anything on the record.[1][2] That secrecy fuels competing narratives: some commentators claim the probe validates long-standing questions about the honesty behind the lawfare campaign against Trump, while others insist it looks like politically motivated retaliation, especially because perjury prosecutions over deposition funding are so unusual.[2][3][4][5]
DOJ LAUNCHING PROBE INTO E. JEAN CARROLL, PER SOURCES: Years after a jury found Pres. Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, 'The View' co-hosts question why the Department of Justice is reportedly launching a probe into her deposition. pic.twitter.com/7EnKehaDQp
— The View (@TheView) May 28, 2026
MS NOW and Democracy Now, outlets generally hostile to Trump, have already branded the investigation “egregious,” framing it as part of what they describe as Trump’s “enemies list,” even though the same coverage concedes the Justice Department is only at an investigative stage with no charges filed.[3][4][5] At the same time, mainstream network segments acknowledge that high-profile, donor-supported cases against political figures routinely spawn fights over funding, bias, and alleged perjury, where a single ambiguous answer can be spun as either deliberate deception or simple human imperfection.[2]
Sources:
[1] Web – Trump Accuser E. Jean Carroll Now Under Investigation by the DOJ
[2] YouTube – DOJ opens investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean …
[3] YouTube – DOJ launches criminal probe into E. Jean Carroll, sources …
[4] YouTube – Ex-Trump aide: DOJ’s E. Jean Carroll probe is a mistake
[5] YouTube – Justice Department opens criminal investigation involving …
