E. Jean Carroll said Thursday she “did not commit perjury,” pushing back against a reported Department of Justice criminal investigation centered on statements she made during a deposition in her civil lawsuit against President Donald Trump.
The Justice Department opened the inquiry in May, according to multiple reports citing people with knowledge of the matter. The probe focuses on whether Carroll lied during an October 2022 deposition when she was asked whether anyone was paying her legal fees. She told investigators no.
Records show that American Future Republic, a nonprofit backed by LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, had contributed to Carroll’s legal costs in September 2020, two years before the deposition. Trump’s legal team has argued that Carroll’s denial during that deposition constituted a false statement under oath.
Carroll and her attorneys have offered a different explanation: she had forgotten about the “limited outside funding” at the time the question was posed. A federal court previously addressed the issue after Trump accused her of lying, citing Carroll’s explanation that the contributions had slipped her memory.
The DOJ is also separately probing American Future Republic itself, The Washington Post reported. The nonprofit is under scrutiny for its role in funding Carroll’s litigation.
Adding to the confusion, the top federal prosecutor in Chicago, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, denied that his office was running the investigation, disputing reports to the contrary, the Associated Press reported. Legal observers have noted it is highly unusual for federal prosecutors to pursue perjury allegations arising from statements made in civil depositions.
The investigation was first reported by The New York Times on May 27. It came after a federal appeals court upheld the damages verdicts against Trump in April, and while his team continues pushing the Supreme Court to intervene.
Carroll won two separate civil suits against Trump. A May 2023 jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her and awarded $5 million in damages. A January 2024 trial produced an additional $83.3 million verdict. Both remain under appeal.
Trump’s legal team has also sought to invoke the Westfall Act to substitute the Justice Department as the defendant in the federal defamation claims, a move that would effectively void those counts since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
Carroll first made her allegation in a June 2019 New York magazine article, claiming Trump assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. She is a former advice columnist for Elle magazine.
