E. Jean Carroll walked out of two courtrooms with $88 million of Donald Trump's money.
Now the Department of Justice wants to know if she lied to get it.
Federal prosecutors just launched a criminal perjury investigation into Carroll – and the whole thing hinges on a single question she answered wrong under oath.
The Deposition Statement That Started Everything
In 2022, with her lawsuit against Trump already filed, Carroll sat down for a deposition with Trump attorney Alina Habba.
Habba asked Carroll directly: was anyone else paying her legal fees?
Carroll said no.
That answer was false.
Reid Hoffman – the LinkedIn billionaire, Democrat megadonor, and self-described opponent of Donald Trump – had been quietly bankrolling her legal fight through a nonprofit called American Future Republic.
Carroll's own lawyers eventually disclosed the Hoffman funding.
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A federal judge blocked the jury from hearing about it.
Carroll walked away with the verdicts anyway.
But the Department of Justice wasn't done.
Chicago Prosecutors Are Now Leading the Case
Senior DOJ leadership referred the investigation to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois – the same Chicago office where Trump appointee Andrew Boutros took the helm in 2025.
The Chicago connection isn't coincidental – Hoffman's nonprofit is based there.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has recused himself because he represented Trump personally during Carroll's appeals.
Trump's DOJ is pursuing this case without the president's personal lawyer in the room.
Perjury under federal law carries up to five years in prison per count.
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Carroll is 82 years old.
This Was Always a Political Operation
Hoffman has described funding litigation against Trump as a deliberate strategy – part of a broader campaign against politicians he says single out women.
The same billionaire was previously forced to apologize for secretly financing a disinformation operation during Alabama's 2017 Senate race, designed to create the false impression that Russian bots were supporting Republican Roy Moore.
This is what liberal dark money looks like in practice: secret funding, late disclosures, and a judge who sealed the documents before the jury could see them.
Carroll swore under oath that none of it was happening.
The jury never got to hear otherwise.
And for three years, it worked.
The Machine That Went After Trump Is Now Getting Examined
A liberal billionaire secretly funded a lawsuit against a sitting president.
The accuser swore under oath no one was helping pay her bills.
When Trump's lawyers discovered the truth, the judge buried it.
Two juries handed Carroll a combined $88 million without ever knowing who was really behind the case.
Now a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Chicago is asking the question every one of those jurors deserved answered before they voted.
This is what accountability looks like when the people running it aren't protecting their own side.
The Left spent years screaming that Trump weaponized the Justice Department against his enemies.
What they never explained was how they used courtrooms across the country to come after him first.
Sources:
- Simon Kent, "DOJ Launches Criminal Investigation into Trump Accuser E. Jean Carroll," Breitbart, May 28, 2026.
- Aaron Kliegman, "Billionaire Dem Donor Defends Bankrolling Trump Accuser's Rape Lawsuit as Judge Seals Funding Docs," Fox News, April 22, 2023.
- "DOJ Opens a Criminal Probe Into E. Jean Carroll's Alleged Perjury in Trump Case," LifeZette, May 28, 2026.
- Alina Habba letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, Trump v. Carroll court filings, April 2023.