The DOJ is criminally investigating the writer, 82, who won tens of millions of dollars in civil damages against the president, a source tells MS NOW.
The Trump Justice Department may be on the verge of adding to its vindictive prosecution portfolio.
A source familiar with the matter has confirmed to MS NOW that the DOJ opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the 82-year-old writer who won tens of millions of dollars in damages in two separate but related civil cases against President Donald Trump, who was found civilly liable for sexually abusing Carroll decades ago and for defaming her more recently. Trump has denied wrongdoing and is seeking Supreme Court review of both cases after losing in the lower courts.
CNN first reported on the investigation, citing multiple unnamed sources familiar with the matter and specifying that the probe “is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the president” in those cases in which she won those millions of dollars in damages. “Prosecutors’ theory hinges on a 2022 deposition statement by Carroll, 82, that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, though it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some legal fees and expenses,” CNN reported.
The inquiry reportedly is being conducted in the federal office in Chicago led by Trump-backed U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros. His office recently drew national attention in the “Broadview Six” prosecution against immigration protesters, whose charges Boutros dropped after potential misconduct in his office tainted the case.
How Carroll could win
Vindictive prosecution motions are rarely won, but Trump’s revenge-themed second term has spawned a series of such motions brought by high-profile targets of the administration. We recently saw a successful example in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose criminal charges of illegally transporting undocumented immigrants were dismissed last week on vindictiveness grounds. A federal judge in Tennessee found that the Trump DOJ only charged Abrego after he filed a successful civil lawsuit securing his return from El Salvador, a country to which the administration illegally sent him in violation of a court order.
Carroll could bring a similarly successful motion if she’s charged. She could argue that, like Abrego, she’s only being prosecuted for vindicating her rights in civil litigation. Indeed, her hypothetical case could further underscore the administration’s illegal animus because it would follow her successful litigation personally against the president who controls this DOJ.
As the Tennessee judge noted in granting Abrego’s dismissal last week (which the DOJ said it will appeal), the validity of vindictive and selective prosecution claims is separate from the question of whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of the underlying charged crimes.
But, mindful that we don’t know what, if anything, will come of this, it’s worth noting for now that it’s far from clear whether the DOJ would be able to prove a criminal case against Carroll beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
Other potential issues with the case
In discussing the litigation funding issue in connection with Trump’s argument that he should have been able to cross-examine Carroll on it in their civil case, an appellate panel that ruled against him agreed with the trial judge that the matter wasn’t sufficiently relevant to her credibility in the case. “Ms. Carroll plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained in September 2020 when this question was first posed to her in 2022, and the additional discovery did not indicate otherwise. Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs,” the panel said.
So while we don’t know whether any criminal charges will materialize or exactly what any charges would entail, the viability of the underlying case would also be heavily scrutinized and would require proving to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt if it went to trial. But as in Abrego’s case, a pretrial motion successfully challenging an indictment as unconstitutional would prevent the case from even going to a jury.
Another step to keep in mind is that any felony charges against Carroll would need to go through a grand jury to get to trial, and the Trump DOJ has notably struggled to get some of its more politicized cases through that preliminary process — including in Chicago.
And on the subject of litigation costs, even successfully defending against bogus charges can be costly, and success is never guaranteed in any event, with the prospect of incarceration looming in criminal cases.
Though it remains to be seen what comes of the newly reported investigation, if it spawns an indictment, then it’s easy to see Carroll’s case joining the growing list of high-profile Trump targets who have made what was once a rare — and rarely successful — attack on criminal charges more common in these days of the revenge-themed Trump DOJ.
A source familiar with the matter has confirmed to MS NOW that the DOJ opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the 82-year-old writer who won tens of millions of dollars in damages in two separate but related civil cases against President Donald Trump, who was found civilly liable for sexually abusing Carroll decades ago and for defaming her more recently. Trump has denied wrongdoing and is seeking Supreme Court review of both cases after losing in the lower courts.
CNN first reported on the investigation, citing multiple unnamed sources familiar with the matter and specifying that the probe “is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the president” in those cases in which she won those millions of dollars in damages. “Prosecutors’ theory hinges on a 2022 deposition statement by Carroll, 82, that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, though it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some legal fees and expenses,” CNN reported.
The inquiry reportedly is being conducted in the federal office in Chicago led by Trump-backed U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros. His office recently drew national attention in the “Broadview Six” prosecution against immigration protesters, whose charges Boutros dropped after potential misconduct in his office tainted the case.
How Carroll could win
Vindictive prosecution motions are rarely won, but Trump’s revenge-themed second term has spawned a series of such motions brought by high-profile targets of the administration. We recently saw a successful example in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose criminal charges of illegally transporting undocumented immigrants were dismissed last week on vindictiveness grounds. A federal judge in Tennessee found that the Trump DOJ only charged Abrego after he filed a successful civil lawsuit securing his return from El Salvador, a country to which the administration illegally sent him in violation of a court order.
Carroll could bring a similarly successful motion if she’s charged. She could argue that, like Abrego, she’s only being prosecuted for vindicating her rights in civil litigation. Indeed, her hypothetical case could further underscore the administration’s illegal animus because it would follow her successful litigation personally against the president who controls this DOJ.
As the Tennessee judge noted in granting Abrego’s dismissal last week (which the DOJ said it will appeal), the validity of vindictive and selective prosecution claims is separate from the question of whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of the underlying charged crimes.
But, mindful that we don’t know what, if anything, will come of this, it’s worth noting for now that it’s far from clear whether the DOJ would be able to prove a criminal case against Carroll beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
Other potential issues with the case
In discussing the litigation funding issue in connection with Trump’s argument that he should have been able to cross-examine Carroll on it in their civil case, an appellate panel that ruled against him agreed with the trial judge that the matter wasn’t sufficiently relevant to her credibility in the case. “Ms. Carroll plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained in September 2020 when this question was first posed to her in 2022, and the additional discovery did not indicate otherwise. Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs,” the panel said.
So while we don’t know whether any criminal charges will materialize or exactly what any charges would entail, the viability of the underlying case would also be heavily scrutinized and would require proving to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt if it went to trial. But as in Abrego’s case, a pretrial motion successfully challenging an indictment as unconstitutional would prevent the case from even going to a jury.
Another step to keep in mind is that any felony charges against Carroll would need to go through a grand jury to get to trial, and the Trump DOJ has notably struggled to get some of its more politicized cases through that preliminary process — including in Chicago.
And on the subject of litigation costs, even successfully defending against bogus charges can be costly, and success is never guaranteed in any event, with the prospect of incarceration looming in criminal cases.
Though it remains to be seen what comes of the newly reported investigation, if it spawns an indictment, then it’s easy to see Carroll’s case joining the growing list of high-profile Trump targets who have made what was once a rare — and rarely successful — attack on criminal charges more common in these days of the revenge-themed Trump DOJ.
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